The  Cambridge  Manuals  of  Science  and 
Literature 


LIFE  IN  THE  MEDIEVAL 
UNIVERSITY 


CAMBRIDGE  UNIVERSITY  PRESS 

i;oni)0tt:  FETTER  LANE,  E.G. 

C.  F.  CLAY,  Manager 


€iimbutfih :   loo  PRINCES  STREET 
i^rlitt :  A.  ASHER  AND  CO. 
WtiVziQ:  F.  A.  BROCKHAUS 

^ctoiork:  G.  P.  PUTNAM'S  SONS 
f  ombitfi  mli  daktttta :  MACMILLAN  AND  CO.,  Ltd. 


Ai/  Hghts  reserved 


IliiaKuvir,  ...ili^OPHIg 


The  Student's  Puogukss 

(From  Gregor  Ileisch's  Maryat-ita  philosophica.  Edition  of  1504,  Strassburg) 


•LIFE 
IN   THE  MEDIEVAL 
UNIVERSITY* 


BY 


ROBERT  S.  RAIT,  M.A. 

FELLOW  AND  TUTOR  OF  NEW  COLLEGE,  OXFORD 


Cambridge : 

at  the  University  Press 

1912 


ii 


i  i\ 


IVtth  the  exception  of  the  coat  of  arms  at 
the  foot,  the  design  on  the  title  page  Is  a 
reproduction  of  one  used  by  the  earliest  known 
Cambridge  printer,  John  Slberch,  i  5  2  i 


i-A  ni 


NOTE  ON  THE  FRONTISPIECE 

In  this  picture  the  schoolboy  i^seen  arriving  with  his  satchel 
and  being  presented  with  a  hornbook  by  Nicostrata,  the  Latin 
muse  Carmentis,  who  changed  the  Greek  alphabet  into  the 
Latin.  She  admits  him  by  the  key  of  congruitas  to  the  House 
of  Wisdom  ("  Wisdom  hath  builded  her  house,  she  hath  hewn 
out  her  seven  pillars,"  Proverbs  ix.  1).  In  the  lowest  story  he 
begins  his  course  in  Donatus  under  a  Bachelor  of  Arts  armed 
with  the  birch;  in  the  next  he  is  promoted  to  Priscian.  Then 
follow  the  other  subjects  of  the  Trivium  and  the  Quadrivium^ 
each  subject  being  represented  by  its  chief  exponent— logic  by 
Aristotle,  arithmetic  by  Boethius,  geometry  by  Euclid,  etc. 
Ptolemy,  the  philosopher,  who  represents  astronomy,  is  con- 
fused with  the  kings  of  the  same  name.  Pliny  and  Seneca 
represent  the  more  advanced  study  of  physical  and  of  moral 
science  respectively,  and  the  edifice  is  crowned  by  Theology, 
the  long  and  arduous  course  for  which  followed  that  of  the 
Arts.  Its  representative  in  a  medieval  treatise  is  naturally 
Peter  liombard. 


292542 


NOTE 

I  WISH  to  express  my  obligations  to  many  recent 
writers  on  University  history,  and  to  the  editors  of 
University  Statutes  and  other  records,  from  which 
my  illustrations  of  medieval  student  life  have  been 
derived.  I  owe  special  gratitude  to  Dr  Hastings 
Rashdall,  Fellow  of  New  College  and  Canon  of 
Hereford,  my  indebtedness  to  whose  great  work. 
The  Universities  of  Europe  in  the  Middle  Ages, 
is  apparent  throughout  the  following  pages.  Dr 
Rashdall  has  been  good  enough  to  read  my  proof- 
sheets,  and  to  make  valuable  criticisms  and  sug- 
gestions, and  the  Master  of  Emmanuel  has  rendered 
me  a  similar  service. 

R.  S.  R. 

23rei  January  1912. 


CONTENTS 


Chapter  I — Introductory 

Chaucer  and  the  Medieval  Student — The  Great  Period  of  Univer- 
sity-Founding—  The  words  "  Universitas,"  "Collegium," 
"  Studium  Generale" — Bologna — Growth  of  Studia  Generalia 
— Paris,  Oxford,  Cambridge — Definition  of  "  Universitas" 


Chapter  II — Life  in  the  Student- Universities 

Student-Guilds  at  Bologna — "  Nations  " — The  College  of  Doctors — 
Relations  with  the  City — Position  of  an  English  Law  Student 
at  Bologna,  and  his  relations  to  his  Nation  and  his  Universitas 
— The  Office  of  Eector — Powers  of  the  University  over  Citizens 
— The  Degradation  of  the  Bologna  Masters — Examinations — 
The  Doctorate  —  Regulations  —  Padua  —  Limitations  of  the 
Rector's  Powers  at  Florence — Spanish  Universities — Married 
Dons 13 


Chapter  III — The  Universities  of  Masters 

Early  History  of  the  University  of  Paris — Faculties — "Nations" — 
Struggle  with  the  Chancellor — Position  of  the_  Rector — Oxford 
— "Nations" — The  Proctoi's — University  Jurisdiction — Ger- 
many— Scotland 41 


Chapter  IV — College  Discipline 

Origin  of  the  College  System — Merton — Imitations  of  the  Merton 
Rule — New  College — Increase  in  Number  of  Regulations — 
Latin-Speaking— Conversation  in  Hall— Meals— College  Rooms 
— Amusements — Penalties — Introduction  of  Corporal  Punish- 
ment— The  Tonsure — Attendance  at  Chapel — Vacations — 
Hospitality— The  Career  of  an  English  Student— Meaning  of 
' '  Poor  and  Indigent  Scholars  " — The  College  System^  at  Paris 
— Sconcing — Other  French  Universities — A  Visitation  of  a 
Medieval  College 49 

vli 


viii    LIFE  IN  THE  MEDIEVAL  UNIVERSITY 


Chapter  V — University  Discipline 

Growth  of  Disciplinary  Regulations  at  Paris  and  Oxford — Records 
of  the  Chancellor's  Court — Discipline  in  Unendowed  Halls — 
Academic  Dress  restricted  to  Graduates — Louvain — Leipsic — 
Leniency  of  Punishments — The  Scottish  Universities — Table 
Manners  at  Aberdeen — Life  at  Heidelberg        ....         94 


Chapter  VI — The  '^'^ Jocund  Advent" 

Admission  of  the  Bajan  at  Paris — The  Universities  of  Southern 
France  —  The  Abbas  Bejanorum  —  The  "Jocund  Advent"  in 
Germany — the  "  Depositio  " — Oxford — Scotland       .        .        .      109 


Chapter  VII — Town  and  Gown 

Vienna — St  Scholastica's  Day  at  Oxfoi'd — Assaults  by  Members  of 
the  University — Records  of  the  "  Acta  Rectorum  "  at  Leipsic 
— Parisian  Scholars  and  the  Monks  of  St  Germain     .         .         .       124 


Chapter  VIII — Subjects  of  Study,  Lectures,  Examinations 

Instruction  given  in  Latin — Preparation  for  the  University — 
Grammar  Masters — French  taught  at  Oxford — The  "Act"  in 
Grammar — The  Seven  Liberal  Arts  and  the  Three  Philosophies 
— Text-books — Ordinary  and  Cursory  Lectures — Methods  of 
Lecturing — Repetitions  and  Disputations — University  and 
College  Teaching  —  Examinations  at  Paris,  Louvain,  and 
Oxford— The  Determining  Feast— Walter  Paston  at  Oxford     .       133 

Appendix 157 

Bibliography 159 

Index 161 


LIFE  IN  THE  MEDIEVAL 
UNIVERSITY 


CHAPTER  I 

INTRODUCTORY 

"  A  Clerk  ther  was  of  Oxenford  also, 
That  unto  logik  hadde  longe  y-go 
As  lene  was  his  hors  as  is  a  rake, 
And  he  was  not  right  fat,  I  undertake  ; 
But  loked  holwe,  and  therto  soberly. 
Ful  thredbar  was  his  overest  courtepy, 
For  he  had  geten  him  yet  no  benefyce, 
Ne  was  so  worldly  for  to  have  offyce. 
For  him  was  lever  have  at  his  beddes  heed 
Twenty  bokes,  clad  in  blak  or  reed. 
Of  Aristotle  and  his  philosophye. 
Than  robes  riche,  or  fithele,  or  gay  sautrye. 
But  al  be  that  he  was  a  philosophre. 
Yet  hadde  he  but  litel  gold  in  cofre  ; 
But  al  that  he  might  of  his  freendes  hente. 
On  bokes  and  on  lerninge  he  it  spente. 
And  bisily  gan  for  the  soules  preye 
Of  hem  that  yaf  him  wherwith  to  scoleye. 
Of  studie  took  he  most  cure  and  most  hede, 
Noght  o  word  spak  he  more  than  was  nede, 
And  that  was  seyd  in  forme  and  reverence 
And  short  and  quik,  and  ful  of  hy  sentence. 
Souninge  in  moral  vertu  was  his  speche. 
And  gladly  wolde  he  lerne,  and  gladly  teche. 


2    IJFE  IN  THE  MEDIEVAL  UNIVERSITY 

An  account  of  life  in  the  medieval  University 
might  well  take  the  form  of  a  commentary  upon  the 
classical  description  of  a  medieval  English  student. 
His  dress,  the  character  of  his  studies  and  the  nature 
of  his  materials,  the  hardships  and  the  natural 
ambitions  of  his  scholar's  life,  his  obligations  to 
founders  and  benefactors,  suggest  learned  expositions 
which  might 

in  judicious  hands 
Extend  from  here  to  Mesopotamy, 

and  will  serve  for  a  modest  attempt  to  picture  the 
environment  of  one  of  the  Canterbury  pilgrims. 

Chaucer's  famous  lines  do  more  than  afford  oppor- 
tunities of  explanation  and  comment ;  they  give 
us  an  indication  of  the  place  assigned  to  universities 
and  their  students  by  English  public  opinion  in  the 
later  Middle  Ages.  The  monk  of  the  "  Prologue  " 
is  simply  a  country  gentleman.  No  accusation  of 
immorality  is  brought  against  him,  but  he  is  a 
jovial  huntsman  who  likes  the  sound  of  the  bridle 
jingling  in  the  wind  better  than  the  call  of  the 
church  bells,  a  lover  of  dogs  and  horses,  of  rich 
clothes  and  great  feasts.  The  portrait  of  the  friar 
is  still  less  sympathetic  ;  he  is  a  frequenter  of 
taverns,  a  devourer  of  widows'  houses,  a  man  of 
gross,  perhaps  of  evil,  life.  The  monk  abandons 
his  cloister  and  its  rules,  the  friar  despises  the  poor 


INTRODUCTORY  3 

and  the  leper.  The  poet  is  making  no  sociaUstic 
attack  upon  the  foundations  of  society,  and  no 
heretical  onslaught  upon  the  Church  ;  he  draws  a 
portrait  of  two  t3rpes  of  the  English  regular  clergy. 
His  description  of  two  types  of  the  English  secular 
clergy  forms  an  illuminating  contrast.  The  noble 
verses,  in  which  he  tells  of  the  virtues  of  the  parish 
priest,  certainly  imply  that  the  seculars  also  had  their 
temptations  and  that  they  did  not  always  resist 
them  ;  but  the  fact  remains  that  Chaucer  chose  as 
the  representative  of  the  parochial  clergy  one  who 

"  way  ted  after  no  pompe  and  reverence, 
Ne  maked  him  a  spyced  conscience, 
But  Cristes  lore,  and  his  apostles  twelve, 
He  taughte,  but  first  he  folwed  it  himselve." 

The  history  of  pious  and  charitable  foundations  is 
a  vindication  of  the  truth  of  the  portraiture  of  the 
"  Prologue."  The  foundation  of  a  new  monastery 
and  the  endowment  of  the  friars  had  aUke  ceased 
to  attract  the  benevolent  donor,  who  was  turning 
his  attention  to  the  universities,  where  secular 
clergy  were  numerous.  The  clerks  of  Oxford  and 
Cambridge  had  succeeded  to  the  place  held  by  the 
monks,  and,  after  them,  by  the  friars,  in  the  affection 
and  the  respect  of  the  nation. 

Outside  the  kingdom  of  England  the  fourteenth 
century  was  also  a  great  period  in  the  growth  of 


4    LIFE  IN  THE  MEDIEVAL  UNIVERSITY 

universities  and  colleges,  to  which,  all  over  Europe, 
privileges  and  endowments  were  granted  by  popes, 
emperors,  kings,  princes,  bishops  and  municipahties. 
To  attempt  to  indicate  the  various  causes  and  con- 
ditions which,  in  different  countries,  led  to  the 
growth,  in  numbers  and  in  wealth,  of  institutions 
for  the  pursuit  of  learning  would  be  to  wander  from 
our  special  topic  ;  but  we  may  take  the  period  from 
the  middle  of  the  fourteenth  to  the  middle  of  the 
fifteenth  century  as  that  in  which  the  medieval 
University  made  its  greatest  appeal  to  the  imagina- 
tion of  the  peoples  of  Europe.  Its  institutional  forms 
had  become  definite,  its  terminology  fixed,  and  the 
materials  for  a  study  of  the  life  of  the  fourteenth 
century  student  are  abundant.  The  conditions  of 
student  life  varied,  of  course,  with  country  and 
chmate,  and  with  the  differences  in  the  constitutions 
of  individual  universities  and  in  their  relations  to 
Church  and  State.  No  single  picture  of  the  medieval 
student  can  be  drawn,  but  it  will  be  convenient  to 
choose  the  second  haK  of  the  fourteenth  century, 
or  the  first  half  of  the  fifteenth,  as  the  central  point 
of  our  investigation. 

We  have  already  used  technical  terms,  "  Univer- 
sity,'' "  College,''  "  Student,"  which  require  elucida- 
tion, and  others  will  arise  in  the  course  of  our  inquiry. 
What  is  a  University  ?  At  the  present  day  a 
University    is,    in    England,    a    corporation   whose 


INTRODUCTORY  5 

power  of  granting  certain  degrees  is  recognised  by 
the  State  ;  but  nothing  of  this  is  implied  in  the  word 
"  University/'  Its  Hteral  meaning  is  simply  an 
association.  Recent  writers  on  University  history 
have  pointed  out  that  Universitas  vestra,  in  a  letter 
addressed  to  a  body  of  persons,  means  merely  "  the 
whole  of  you  "  and  that  the  term  was  by  no  means 
restricted  to  learned  bodies.  It  was  frequently 
applied  to  municipal  corporations  ;  Dr  Rashdall,  in 
his  learned  work,  teUs  us  that  it  is  used  by  medieval 
VvTiters  in  addressing  "  aU  faithful  Christian  people/' 
and  he  quotes  an  instance  in  \vhich  Pisan  captives 
at  Genoa  in  the  end  of  the  thirteenth  century 
formed  themselves  into  a  "  Universitas  carcera- 
torum.''  The  w^ord  "  College "  affords  us  no 
further  enlightenment.  It,  too,  means  Hterally  a 
community  or  association,  and,  unhke  the  sister 
term  University,  it  has  never  become  restricted  to  a 
scholastic  association.  The  Senators  of  the  "  College 
of  Justice  "  are  the  judges  of  the  Supreme  Court 
in  Scotland. 

We  must  caU  in  a  third  term  to  help  us.  In  what 
we  should  describe  as  the  early  days  of  European 
universities,  there  came  into  use  a  phrase  some- 
times w^ritten  as  Studium  Universale  or  Stadium 
Commune,  but  more  usually  Studmm  ^'Generale. 
It  was  used  in  much  the  same  sense  in  which  we 
speak  of  a  University  to-day,  and  a  short  sketch 


6    LIFE  m  THE  MEDIEVAL  UNIVERSITY 

of  its  history  is  necessary  for  the  solution  of  our 
problem. 

The  twelfth  century  produced  in  Europe  a  renewal 
of  interest  and  a  revival  of  learning,  brought  about 
partly  by  the  influence  of  great  thinkers  like  St 
Anselm  and  Abelard,  and  partly  by  the  discovery 
of  lost  works  of  Aristotle.  The  impulse  thus  given 
to  study  resulted  in  an  increase  in  the  numbers  of 
students,  and  students  were  naturally  attracted  to 
schools  where  masters  and  teachers  possessed,  or 
had  left  behind  them,  great  names.  At  Bologna 
there  was  a  great  teacher  of  the  Civil  Law  in  the 
first  quarter  of  the  twelfth  centur}^,  and  a  great, 
writer  on  Canon  Law  lived  there  in  the  middle  of  the 
same  century.  To  Bologna,  therefore,  there  flocked 
students  of  law,  though  not  of  law  alone.  In  the 
schools  of  Paris  there  were  great  masters  of  philo- 
sophy and  theology  to  whom  students  crowded  from 
all  parts  of  Europe.  Many  of  the  foreign  students 
at  Paris  were  .Englishmen,  and  when,  at  the  time 
of  Becket's  quarrel  with  Henry  II.,  the  disputes 
between  the  sovereigns  of  England  and  France  led 
to  the  recall  of  English  students  from  the  domain 
of  their  King's  enemy,  there  grew  up  at  Oxford  a 
great  school  or  Studium,  which  acquired  some- 
thing of  the  fame  of  Paris  and  Bologna.  A  struggle 
between  the  clerks  who  studied  at  Oxford  and  the 
people  of  the  town  broke  out  at  the  time  of  John's 


INTRODUCTORY  7 

defiance  of  the  Papacy,  when  the  King  outlawed  the 
clergy  of  England,  and  this  struggle  led  to  the  rise 
of  a  school  at  Cambridge.  In  Italy  the  institutions 
of  the  Studiurn  at  Bologna  were  copied  at  Modena, 
at  Reggio,  at  Vicenza,  at  Arezzo,  at  Padua,  and 
elsewhere,  and  in  1244  or  1245  Pope  Innocent  IV. 
founded  a  Studiurn  of  a  different  constitution,  in 
dependence  upon  the  Papal  Court.  In  Spain  great 
schools  grew  up  at  Palencia,  Salamanca,  and  Valla- 
dolid ;  in  France  at  Montpellier,  Orleans,  Angers, 
and  Toulouse,  and  at  Lyons  and  Reims.  The 
impulse  given  by  Bologna  and  Paris  was  thus  leading 
to  the  foundation  of  new  Studia  or  the  development 
of  old  ones,  for  there  were  schools  of  repute  at  many 
of  the  places  we  have  mentioned  before  the  period 
with  which  we  are  now  dealing  (c.  1170-1250).  It 
was  inevitable  that  there  should  be  a  rivalry  among 
these  numerous  schools,  a  rivalr^^  which  was  ac- 
centuated as  small  and  insignificant  Studia  came 
to  claim  for  themselves  equality  of  status  with  their 
older  and  greater  contemporaries.  Thus,  in  the 
latter  half  of  the  thirteenth  century,  there  arose  a 
necessity  for  a  definition  and  a  restriction  of  the 
term  Studium  Generale.  The  desirabilit}^  of  a 
definition  was  enhanced  by  the  practice  of  granting 
to  ecclesiastics  dispensations  from  residence  in  their 
benefices  for  purposes  of  study ;  to  prevent  abuses 
it    was    essential     that    such     permission    should 


S    LIFE  IN  THE  MEDIEVAL  UNIVERSITY 

be    limited    to    a    number    of     recognised    Studia 
Generalia. 

The  difficulty  of  enforcing  such  a  definition 
throughout  almost  the  whole  of  Europe  might  seem 
likely  to  be  great,  but  in  point  of  fact  it  was  in- 
considerable. In  the  first  haK  of  the  thirteenth 
century,  the  term  Studium  Generale  was  assuming 
a  recognised  significance  ;  a  school  which  aspired 
to  the  name  must  not  be  restricted  to  natives  of  a 
particular  town  or  country,  it  must  have  a  number 
of  masters,  and  it  must  teach  not  only  the  Seven 
Liberal  Arts  (of  which  we  shall  have  to  speak  later), 
but  also  one  or  more  of  the  higher  studies  of 
Theology,  Law  and  Medicine  (c/.  Rashdall,  vol.  i. 
p.  9).  But  the  title  might  still  be  adopted  at  will  by 
ambitious  schools,  and  the  intervention  of  the  great 
potentates  of  Europe  was  required  to  provide  a 
mechanism  for  the  differentiation  of  General  from 
Particular  Studia.  Already,  in  the  tweKth  century, 
an  Emperor  and  a  Pope  had  given  special  privileges 
to  students  at  Bologna  and  other  Lombard  towns, 
and  a  King  of  France  had  conferred  privileges 
upon  the  scholars  of  Paris.  In  1224  the  Studium 
Generale  of  Naples  was  founded  by  the  Emperor 
Frederick  11. ,  and  in  1231  he  gave  a  great 
privilege  to  the  School  of  Medicine  at  Salerno,  a 
Studium  which  was  much  more  ancient  than  Bologna, 
but  which  existed  solely  for  the  study  of  Medicine 


INTRODUCTORY  9 

and  exerted  no  influence  upon  the  growth  of  the 
European  universities.  Pope  Gregory  IX.  founded 
the  Studium  at  Toulouse  some  fifteen  years  before 
Innocent  IV.  established  the  Studium  of  the  Roman 
Court.  In  1254  Alfonso  the  Wise  of  Castile  founded 
the  Studium  Generale  of  Salamanca.  Thus  it 
became  usual  for  a  school  which  claimed  the  status 
of  a  Studium  Generale  to  possess  the  authority  of 
Pope  or  Em^peror  or  King. 

A  distinction  gradually  arose  between  a  Studium 
Generale  under  the  authority  of  a  Pope  or  an  Em- 
peror and  one  which  was  founded  by  a  King  or  a 
City  Republic,  and  which  was  known  as  a  Studium 
Generale  respectu  regni.  The  distinction  was  founded 
upon  the  power  of  the  Emperor  or  the  Pope  to  grant 
the  jus  uhique  docendi.  This  privilege,  which  could 
be  conferred  by  no  lesser  potentate,  gave  a  master 
in  one  Studium  Generale  the  right  of  teaching  in 
any  other  ;  it  was  more  valuable  in  theory  than  in 
practice,  but  it  was  held  in  such  esteem  that  in  1292 
Bologna  and  Paris  accepted  the  privilege  from  Pope 
Nicholas  IV.  Some  of  the  Studia  which  we  have 
mentioned  as  existing  in  the  first  haK  of  the  thirteenth 
century — Modena  in  Italy,  and  Lyons  and  Reims 
in  France — never  obtained  this  privilege,  and  as 
their  organisation  and  their  importance  did  not 
justify  their  inclusion  among  Studia  Generalia, 
they  never   took   rank   among   the   universities   of 


10     LIFE  IN  THE  MEDIEVAL  UNIVERSITY 

Europe.  The  status  of  Bologna  and  of  Paris  was, 
of  course,  universally  recognised  before  and  apart 
from  the  Bulls  of  Nicholas  IV.  ;  Padua  did  not 
accept  a  Papal  grant  until  1346  and  then  merely 
as  a  confirmation,  not  a  creation,  of  its  privileges  as 
a  Studiiim  Generale  ;  Oxford  never  received,  though 
it  twice  asked  for,  a  declaratory  or  confirmatory 
Bull,  and  based  its  claim  upon  immemorial  custom 
and  its  ov/n  great  position.  Cambridge,  which  in 
the  thirteenth  century  was  a  much  less  important 
seat  of  learning  than  Oxford,  was  formally  recognised 
as  a  Studium  Generale  by  Pope  John  XXII.  in  1318  ; 
but  its  claim  to  the  title  had  long  been  admitted, 
at  all  events  within  the  realm  of  England.  After 
1318  Cambridge  could  grant  the  licentia  ubique 
docendi,  which  Oxford  did  not  formally  confer, 
although  Oxford  men,  as  the  graduates  of  a  Studium 
Generale,  certainly  possessed  the  privilege. 

Long  before  the  definition  of  a  Studium  Generale 
as  a  school  possessing,  by  the  gift  of  Pope  or 
Emperor,  the  jus  ubique  docendi,  was  generally  ac- 
cepted throughout  Europe,  we  find  the  occurrence 
of  the  more  familiar  term,  "  Universitas,''  which 
we  are  now  in  a  position  to  understand. 

A  Universitas  was  an  association  in  the  world  of 
learning  which  corresponded  to  a  Guild  in  the 
world  of  commerce,  a  union  among  men  living  in  a 
Studium  and  possessing  some  common  interests  to 


INTRODUCTORY  11 

protect  and  advance.  Originally,  a  Universitas 
could  exist  in  a  less  important  school  than  a  Studium 
Generale,  but  with  exceptional  instances  of  this 
kind  we  are  not  concerned.  By  the  time  which  we 
have  chosen  for  the  central  point  of  our  survey,  the 
importance  of  these  guilds  or  Universitates  had  so 
greatly  increased  that  the  word  "  Universitas '' 
was  coming  to  be  equivalent  to  "  Studium  Generale." 
In  the  fifteenth  century,  Dr  Rashdall  tells  us,  the 
two  terms  were  synonymous.  The  Universitas 
Studii,  the  guild  of  the  School,  became,  technically 
and  officially,  the  Studium  Generale  itself,  and 
Studia  Generalia  were  distinguished  by  the  kind 
of  Universitates  or  guilds  which  they  possessed.  It 
is  usual  to  speak  of  Bologna  and  Paris  as  the  two 
great  archetypal  universities,  and  this  description 
does  not  depend  upon  mere  priority  of  date  or  upon 
the  impetus  given  to  thought  and  interest  in  Europe 
by  their  teachers  or  their  methods.  Bologna  and 
Paris  were  two  Studia  Generalia  with  two  different 
and  irreconcilable  types  of  Universitas.  The 
Universitates  of  the  Studium  of  Bologna  were  guilds 
of  students  ;  the  Universitas  of  the  Studium  of 
Paris  was  a  guild  of  masters.  The  great  seats  of 
learning  in  Medieval  Europe  were  either  universities 
of  students  or  universities  of  masters,  imitations  of 
Bologna  or  of  Paris,  or  modifications  of  one  or  the 
other  or  of  both.     It  would  be  impossible  to  draw 


12     LIFE  IN  THE  MEDIEVAL  UNIVERSITY 

up  a  list  and  divide  medieval  universities  into 
compartments.  Nothing  is  more  difficult  to  classify 
than  the  constitutions  of  living  societies  ;  a  con- 
stitution which  one  man  might  regard  as  a  modifica- 
tion of  the  constitution  of  Bologna  would  be  in  the 
opinion  of  another  more  correctly  describedj.as  a 
modification  of  the  constitution  of  Paris,  and  -a 
development  in  the  constitution  of  a  University 
might  be  held  to  have  altered  its  fundamental 
position  and  to  transfer  it  from  one  class  to  another. 
Where  students  legislated  for  themselves,  their 
rules  were  neither  numerous  nor  detailed.  Our 
information  about  life  in  the  student-universities  is, 
therefore,  comparatively  small,  and  it  is  with  the 
universities  of  masters  that  we  shall  be  chiefly 
concerned.  It  is,  however,  essential  to  understand 
the  powers  acquired  by  the  student-guilds  at  Bologna, 
the  institutions  of  which  were  reproduced  by  most 
of  the  Italian  universities,  by  those  of  Spain  and 
Portugal,  and,  much  less  accurately,  by  the  smaller 
universities  of  France. 


CHAPTER  II 

LIFE   IN   THE    STUDENT-UNIVERSITIES 

The  Universitates  or  guilds  which  were  formed  in 
the  Studium  Generale  of  Bologna  were  associations 
of  foreign  students.  The  lack  of  political  unity  in 
the  Italian  peninsula  was  one  of  the  circumstances 
that  led  to  the  pecuhar  and  characteristic  constitu- 
tion evolved  by  the  Itahan  universities.  A  famous 
Studium  in  an  Itahan  city  state  must  of  necessity 
attract  a  large  proportion  of  foreign  students.  These 
foreign  students  had  neither  civil  nor  political 
rights  ;  they  were  men  "  out  of  their  own  law," 
for  whom  the  government  under  which  they  lived 
made  small  and  uncertain  provision.  Their  strength 
lay  in  their  numbers,  and  in  the  effect  which  their 
presence  produced  upon  the  prosperity  and  the 
reputation  of  the  town.  They  early  recognised  the 
necessity  of  union  if  full  use  was  to  be  made  of 
the  offensive  and  defensive  weapons  they  pos- 
sessed. The  men  who  came  to  study  law  at  Bologna 
were  not  schoolboys  ;  some  of  them  were  beneficed 
ecclesiastics,  others  were  lawyers,  and  most  of  them 
were  possessed  of  adequate  means  of  hving.  The 
provisions   of   Roman  Law   favoured  the   creation 

13 


14    LIFE  IN  THE  MEDIEVAL  UNIVERSITY 

of  such  protective  guilds  ;  the  privileges  and  im- 
munities of  the  clergy  afforded  an  analogy  for  the 
claim  of  foreign  students  to  possess  laws  of  their 
own  ;  and  the  threat  of  the  secession  of  a  large 
community  was  likely  to  render  a  city  state  amen- 
able to  argument.  The  growth  of  guilds  or  com- 
munities held  together  by  common  interests  and 
safeguarded  by  solemn  oaths  is  one  of  the  features 
of  European  history  of  the  twelfth  and  thirteenth 
centuries,  and  the  students  of  Bologna  took  no 
unusual  or  extraordinary  step  when  they  formed 
their  Universitates. 

The  distinction  of  students  into  "  Nations," 
which  is  still  preserved  in  some  of  the  Scottish 
universities,  is  derived  from  this  guild-forming 
movement  at  Bologna  at  the  end  of  the  twelfth  and 
the  beginning  of  the  thirteenth  century.  No  citizen 
of  Bologna  was  permitted  to  be  a  member  of  a  guild, 
the  protection  of  which  he  did  not  require.  The 
tendency  at  first  was  towards  the  formation  of  a 
number  of  Universitates,  membership  of  which  was 
decided  by  considerations  of  nationality.  But  the 
conditions  which  had  led  to  the  formation  of  these 
Universitates  were  also  likely  to  produce  some 
measure  of  unification,  and  the  law-students  at 
Bologna  soon  ceased  to  have  more  than  two  great 
guilds,  distinguished  on  geographical  principles  as 
the  Universitas  Citramontanorum  and  the  Univer- 


LIFE  IN  THE  STUDENT-UNIVERSITIES    15 

sitas  Ultramontanorum.  Each  was  sub-divided  into 
nations  ;  the  cis- Alpine  University  consisting  of 
Lombards,  Tuscans,  and  Romans,  and  the  trans- 
Alpine  University  of  a  varying  number,  including  a 
Spanish,  a  Gascon,  a  Provengal,  a  Norman,  and  an 
English  nation.  The  three  cis-Alpine  nations  were, 
of  course,  much  more  populous  at  Bologna  than  the 
dozen  or  more  trans- Alpine  nations,  and  they  were 
therefore  sub- divided  into  sections  known  as  Con- 
siHariae.  The  students  of  Arts  and  Medicine,  who 
at  first  possessed  no  organisation  of  their  own  and 
were  imder  the  control  of  the  great  law-guilds, 
succeeded  in  the  fourteenth  century  in  establishing 
a  new  Universitas  within  the  Studium.  The  in- 
fluence of  Medicine  predominated,  for  the  Arts 
course  was,  at  Bologna,  regarded  as  merely  a  pre- 
paration for  the  study  of  Law  and,  especially,  of 
Medicine  ;  but  this  third  Universitas  gave  a  definite 
status  and  definite  rights  to  the  students  of  Arts. 
In  the  sam.e  century  the  two  jurist  universities 
came  to  act  together  so  constantly  that  they  were, 
for  practical  purposes,  united,  so  that,  by  the  begin- 
ning of  the  fifteenth  century,  the  Studium  Generale 
of  Bologna  contained  virtually  two  universities, 
one  of  Law,  and  the  other  of  Arts  and  Medicine, 
governed  by  freely-elected  rectors.  The  peculiar 
relations  of  Theology  to  the  Studium  and  to 
the     universities     is    a    topic    which     belongs    to 


16     LIFE  IN  THE  MEDIEVAL  UNIVERSITY 

constitutional  history,  and  not  to  our  special 
subject. 

,:.  The  universities  of  Bologna  had  to  maintain  a 
struggle  with  two  other  organisations,  the  guilds 
of  masters  and  the  authorities  of  the  city  state. 
They  kept  the  first  in  subjection  ;  they  ultimately 
succumbed  to  the  second.  A  guild  of  masters, 
doctors,  or  professors  had  existed  in  the  Studium 
before  the  rise  of  the  Universitates,  and  it  survived 
with  limited,  but  clearly  defined,  powers.  The 
words  "  Doctor,''  "  Professor,''  and  "  Magister  " 
or  "  Dominus  "  were  at  first  used  indifferently,  and 
a  Master  of  Arts  of  a  Scottish  or  a  German  University 
is  still  described  on  his  diploma  as  a  Doctor  of 
Philosophy.  The  term  "  Master  "  was  little  used 
at  Bologna,  but  it  is  convenient  to  employ  "  master  " 
and  "  student  "  as  the  general  terms  for  teacher  and 
taught.  The  masters  were  the .  teachers  of  the 
Studium,  and  they  protected  their  own  interests 
by  forming  a  guild  the  members  of  which,  and  they 
alone,  had  the  right  to  teach.  Graduation  was 
originally  admission  into  the  guild  of  masters,  and 
the  chief  privilege  attached  to  it  was  the  right  to 
teach.  This  privilege  ultimately  became  merely 
a  theoretical  right  at  Bologna,  where  the  teachers 
tended  to  become  a  close  corporation  of  professors, 
like  the  Senatus  of  a  Scottish  University. 

The  Guild  or  College  of  Masters  who  taught  law 


LIFE  IN  THE  STUDENT-UNIVERSITIES    17 

in  the  Studium  of  Bologna  naturally  resented  the 
rise  of  the  universities  of  students.  The  doctors, 
they  said,  should  elect  the  rectors,  as  they  do  at 
Paris.  The  scholars  follow  no  trade,  they  are  merely 
the  pupils  of  those  who  do  practise  a  profession,  and 
they  have  no  right  to  choose  rulers  for  themselves 
any  more  than  the  apprentices  of  the  skinners.  The 
masters  were  citizens  of  Bologna,  and  it  might  be 
expected  that  the  State  would  assist  them  in  their 
struggle  Avith  a  body  of  foreign  apprentices  ;  but  the 
threat  of  migration  turned  the  scales  in  favour  of  the 
students.  There  were  no  buildings  and  no  endow- 
ments to  render  a  migration  difficult,  and  migration 
did  from  time  to  time  take  place.  The  masters 
themselves  were  dependent  upon  fees  for  their  liveli- 
hood ;  they  were,  at  Bologna,  frequently  laymen 
with  no  benefice  to  fall  back  upon,  and  with  wives 
and  children  to  maintain.  As  time  went  on  and  the 
teaching  masters  became  a  limited  number  of  pro- 
fessors, they  were  given  salaries,  at  first  by  the 
student-universities  themselves  and  afterwards  by 
the  city,  which  feared  to  offend  the  student-univer- 
sities. They  thus  passed,  to  a  large  extent,  under  the 
control  of  the  universities  ;  how  far,  we  shall  see 
as  our  story  progresses.  The  city  authorities  tried 
ineffectually  to  curb  the  universities  and  to  prevent 
migrations,  but  the  students,  with  the  support  of 
the  Papacy,  succeeded  in  maintaining  the  strength 


18     LIFE  IN  THE  MEDIEVAL  UNIVERSITY 

of  their  organisations,  and  when,  in  the  middle  of 
the  fourteenth  century,  secessions  from  Bologna 
came  to  an  end,  the  students  had  obtained  the 
recognition  and  most  of  the  privileges  they  desired. 
In  course  of  time  the  authority  of  the  State  increased 
at  Bologna  and  elsewhere,  bodies  of  Reformatores 
Studii  came  to  be  appointed  by  republics  or  tyrants 
in  Itahan  university-cities,  and  these  boards  gradu- 
ally absorbed  the  government  of  the  universities. 
The  foundation  of  residential  colleges,  and  the 
erection  of  buildings  by  the  universities  themselves, 
deprived  the  students  of  the  possibility  of  reviving 
the  long  disused  weapon  of  a  migration,  and  when 
the  power  of  the  Papacy  became  supreme  in  Bologna, 
the  freedom  of  its  student-universities  came  to  an 
end.  This,  however,  belongs  to  a  later  age.  We 
must  now  attempt  to  obtain  some  picture  of  the 
life  of  a  medieval  student  at  Bologna  during  the 
greatness  of  the  Universitates. 

We  will  choose  an  Englishman  who  arrives  at 
Bologna  early  in  the  fifteenth  century  to  study  law. 
He  finds  himself  at  once  a  member  of  the  EngHsh 
nation  of  the  Trans-montane  University  ;  he  pays 
his  fee,  takes  the  oath  of  obedience  to  the  Rector, 
and  his  name  is  placed  upon  the  "  matricula  ''  or 
roll  of  members  of  *the  University.  He  does  not 
look  about  for  a  lodging-house,  like  a  modern  student 
in  a  Scottish  University,  but  joins  with  some  com- 


LIFE  IN  THE  STUDENT-UNIVERSITIES    19 

panions  (socii)  probably  of  his  own  nation,  to  take 
a  house.  If  our  newcomer  had  been  a  Spaniard, 
he  might  have  been  fortunate  enough  to  find  a  place 
in  the  great  Spanish  CoUege  which  had  been  founded 
in  the  latter  half  of  the  fourteenth  century  ;  as  it  is, 
he  and  his  friends  settle  down  almost  as  citizens  of 
Bologna.  The  success  of  the  universities  in  their  ^^ 
attempt  to  form  a  citizenship  outside  the  state  had 
long  ago  resulted  in  the  creation  also  of  a  semi- 
citizenship  v/ithin  the  state.  The  laws  of  the  city 
of  Bologna  allowed  the  students  to  be  regarded  as 
citizens  so  long  as  they  were  members  of  a  Univer- 
sity. Our  young  Englishman  has,  of  course,  no 
share  in  the  government  of  the  town,  but  he  possesses 
all  rights  necessary  for  the  protection  of  his  person 
and  property  ;  he  can  make  a  legal  will  and  bring 
an  action  against  a  citizen.  The  existence  of  these 
privileges,  unusual  and  remarkable  in  a  medieval 
state,  may  excite  his  curiosity  about  the  method  by 
which  they  were  acquired,  and  he  will  probably  be 
told  strange  and  terrible  tales  of  the  bad  old  times, 
when  a  foreign  student  was  as  helpless  as  any  other 
foreigner  in  a  strange  town,  and  might  be  tortured 
by  unfair  and  tj^^rannous  judges.  If  he  is  historically 
minded,  he  will  learn  about  the  rise  of  the  smaller  , 
guilds  which  are  now  amalgamated  in  his  Univer- 
sitas  ;  how,  like  other  guilds,  they  were  benefit 
societies  caring  for  the  sick  and  the  poor,  burying 


20     LIFE  IN  THE  MEDIEVAL  UNIVERSITY 

the  dead,  and  providing  for  common  religious 
services  and  common  feasts.  He  will  be  told  (in 
language  unfamiliar  at  Oxford)  how  the  proctors  or 
representatives  of  the  guild  were  sent  to  cheer  up 
the  sick  and,  if  necessary,  to  relieve  their  necessities, 
and  to  reconcile  members  who  had  quarrelled.  The 
corporate  payment  for  feasts  included  the  cost  of 
replacing  broken  windows,  which  (at  all  events 
among  the  German  students  at  Bologna)  seem  to 
have  been  associated  with  occasions  of  rejoicing. 
The  guild  would  pay  for  the  release  of  one  of  its 
members  who  was  in  prison,  but  it  would  also  insist 
upon  the  payment  of  the  debts,  even  of  those  who 
had  "  gone  down.''  It  was  essential  that  the 
credit  of  the  guild  with  the  citizens  of  Bologna 
should  be  maintained. 

Many  of  these  purposes  were  still  served  by  the 
*'  nation "  to  which  our  Bologna  freshman  be- 
longed :  but  the  really  important  organisation  was 
that  of  his  Universitas.  One  of  his  first  duties  might 
happen  to  be  connected  with  the  election  of  a  new 
Rector.  The  title  of  the  office  was  common  in  Italy 
and  was  the  equivalent  of  the  Podesta,  or  chief 
magistrate,  of  an  Italian  town.  The  choice  of  a  new 
Rector  would  probably  be  limited,  for  the  honour 
was  costly,  and  the  share  of  the  fines  which  the 
Rector  received  could  not  nearly  meet  his  expenses. 
As  his  jurisdiction  included  clerks,  it  was  necessary, 


LIFE  IN  THE  STUDENT-UNIVERSITIES    21 

by  the  Canon  Law,  that  he  should  have  the  tonsure, 
and  be,  at  all  events  technically,  a  clerk.  He  could 
not  belong  to  any  religious  order,  his  obligations  to 
which  might  conflict  with  his  duty  to  the  Univer- 
sitas,  and  the  expense  of  the  office  made  it  desirable 
that  he  should  be  a  beneficed  clergyman  who  was 
dispensed  from  residence  in  his  benefice  ;  he  could 
enter  upon  his  duties  at  the  age  of  twenty- four, 
and  he  was  not  necessarily  a  priest  or  even  a  deacon. 
Our  freshman  played  a  small  part  in  the  election. 
As  a  member  of  the  English  nation,  he  would  help 
to  choose  a  Consiliarius,  who  had  a  vote  in  the 
election,  and  who  became  one  of  the  Rector's 
permanent  Council.  The  dignity  of  the  Rector's 
position  would  be  impressed  upon  our  novice  by 
his  senior  contemporaries,  who  could  boast  that, 
if  a  Cardinal  came  to  Bologna,  he  must  yield  pre- 
cedence to  the  Rector,  and  the  lesson  would  be 
emphasised  by  a  great  feast  on  the  occasion  of  the 
solemn  installation  and  possibly  by  a  tournament 
and  a  dance,  certainly  by  some  more  magnificent 
banquet  than  that  given  by  a  Rector  of  the  Univer- 
sity of  Arts  and  Medicine.  After  our  student's 
day  there  grew  up  a  strange  ceremony  of  tearing 
the  robe  of  the  new  Rector  and  selling  back  the 
pieces  to  him,  and  statutes  had  to  be  passed  prohibit- 
ing the  acceptance  of  money  for  the  fragments, 
although  if  any  student  succeeded  in^capturing  the 


22     LIFE'  IN  THE  MEDIEVAL  UNIVERSITY 

robe  without  injuring  it,  he  might  claim  its  redemp- 
tion. The  state  and  hospitaUty  which  the  office 
entailed  led  to  its  being  made  compulsory  to  accept 
the  offer  of  it,  but  this  arrangement  failed  to  main- 
tain the  ancient  prestige  of  the  Rectorship  which, 
after  the  decline  of  the  Universitates  themselves, 
had  outlived  its  usefulness. 

Magnificent  as  was  the  position  of  the  Rector  of 
a  Universitas,  our  young  Englishman  would  soon 
discover  that  his  Rector  was  only  a  constitutional 
sovereign.  He  had  to  observe  the  statutes  and  to 
consult  his  Council  upon  important  questions.  He 
had  no  power  to  dispense  with  the  penalties  imposed 
by  the  regulations,  and  for  any  mismanagement 
of  the  pecuniary  affairs  of  the  Universitas  he  was 
personally  liable,  when  at  the  end  of  his  period  of 
office  he  had  to  meet  a  Committee  and  to  render 
an  account  of  his  stewardship.  He  could  sentence 
offending  students  to  money  fines,  but  he  must  have 
the  consent  of  his  Council  before  expelling  them  or 
declaring  them  subject  to  the  ecclesiastical  and 
social  penalties  of  the  perjured  man.  He  claimed 
to  try  cases  brought  by  students  against  townsmen, 
and  about  the  time  of  our  scholar's  arrival,  the  town 
had  admitted  that  he  might  try  students  accused 
of  criminal  offences  forbidden  b}^  the  University 
statutes,  and  had  agreed  to  carry  out  his  sentences. 
Too  free  a  use  of  the  secular  arm  would  naturally 


LIFE  IN  THE  STUDENT-UNIVERSITIES    23 

lead  to  unpopularity  and  trouble  ;  the  spectacle  of 
a  student  being  handed  over  to  the  gaolers  of  the 
Podesta  or  of  the  Bishop  can  never  have  been 
pleasarit  in  the  eyes  of  a  Universitas.  Changes  in 
the  statutes  of  the  University  could  not  be  made  by 
the  Rectpr  ;  every  twenty  years  eight  "  Statutarii  " 
were  appointed  to  revise  the  code,  and  alterations 
made  at  other  times  required  the  consent  of  the 
Congregation,  which  consisted  of  all  students  except 
citizens  of  Bologna  and  a  few  poor  scholars  who  did 
not  subscribe  to  the  funds  of  the  Universitas.  By 
the  time  of  which  we  are  speaking,  the  two  jurist- 
universities  at  Bologna  met  together  in  one  Con- 
gregation, and  if  a  Congregation  happens  to  be  held 
during  our  Englishman's  residence  at  Bologna, 
he  will  find  himself  bound  under  serious  penalties 
to  attend  its  session,  where  he  will  mix  on  equal 
terms  with  mxcmbers  of  the  Cismontane  University, 
listening  to,  or  taking  part  in,  the  debates  (conducted 
in  Latin)  and  throwing  his  black  or  white  bean  into 
the  ballot  box  when  a  vote  is  necessary. 

Although  the  city  of  Bologna  never  admitted  the 
jurisdiction  of  a  Universitas  over  citizens  of  the 
town,  there  were  some  classes  of  citizens  whose  trade 
or  profession  made  them  virtually  its  subjects. 
Landlords,  stationers,  and  masters  or  doctors  were 
in  a  peculiar  relation  to  the  universities,  which  did 
not  fail  to  use  their  advantage  to  the  uttermost. 


24     LIFE  IN  THE  MEDIEVAL  UNIVERSITY 

If  our  English  student  and  his  socii  had  any  dispute 
about  the  rent  of  their  house,  there  was  a  com- 
pulsory system  of  arbitration  ;  if  he  found  an  error 
in  a  MS.  which  he  had  hired  or  purchased  from  a 
Bologna  bookseller  he  was  bound  to  report  it  to  a 
University  Board  whose  duty  it  was  to  inspect  MSS. 
offered  for  sale  or  hire,  and  the  bookseller  would  be 
ordered  to  pay  a  fine  ;  he  was  protected  from  ex- 
tortionate prices  by  a  system  which  allowed  the 
bookseller  a  fixed  profit  on  a  second-hand  book. 
MSS.  were  freely  reproduced  by  the  booksellers' 
clerks,  and  were  neither  scarce  nor  unduly  expensive, 
although  elaborately  illuminated  MSS.  were  natur- 
ally very  valuable.  The  landlords  and  the  book- 
sellers were  kept  in  proper  submission  by  threats 
of  interdictio  or  privatio.  A  citizen  who  offended  the 
University  was  debarred  from  all  intercourse  with 
students,  who  were  strictly  forbidden  to  hire  his 
house  or  his  books  ;  if  a  townsman  brought  a 
"  calumnious  accusation  "  against  a  student,  and 
disobeyed  a  rectorial  command  to  desist,  he  and  his 
children,  to  the  third  generation,  and  all  their  goods, 
were  to  lie  under  an  interdict,  "  sine  spe  restitutionis ." 
Interdictio,  or  discommuning,  was  also  the  great 
weapon  which  might  be  employed  against  the  masters 
of  the  Studium.  The  degradation  of  the  masters  was 
a  gradual  process,  and  it  was  never  complete.  T^e 
privileges  given  by  Frederick  Barbarossa  to  Lombard 


tLIFE  IN  THE  STUDENT-UNIVERSITIES  25 
scholars  in  the  middle  of  the  twelfth  century  included 

'  a  right  of  jurisdiction  over  their  pupils,  and  a  Papal 
Bull  of  the  end  of  the  century  speaks  of  masters 
and  scholars  meeting  together  in  congregations. 
The  organisation  of  the  Universitas  ultimately 
confined  membership  of  congregation  to  students, 
and  the  powers  of  the  Rector  rendered  the  m^agisterial 
jurisdiction  merely  nominal.  The  loss  of  their 
privileges  is  attributed  by  Canon  Rashdall  to  the 
attitude  they  adopted  in  the  early  struggles  between 
the  municipality  and  the  student-guilds.  The 
doctors,  who  were  citizens  of  Bologna,  allied  them- 
selves, he  says,  "  with  the  City  against  the  students 
in  the  selfish  effort  to  exclude  from  the  substantial 
privileges  of  the  Doctorate  all  but  their  own  fellow- 

y  citizens.  ...  It  w  as  through  identifying  themselves 
with  the  Cit}^  rather  than  with  the  scholars  that  the 
Doctors  of  Bologna  sank  into  their  strange  and  un- 
dignified servitude  to  their  own  pupils."  They 
made  a  further  mistake  in  quarrelling  with  the  town 
— the  earliest  migrations  Avere  migrations  of  pro- 
fessors— and  when,  in  the  middle  of  the  thirteenth 
century,  a  permanent  modus  vivendi  was  arrived  at 
between  the  city  and  the  universities,  the  rights 
of  the  doctors  received  no  consideration.  Other 
citizens  of  Bologna  were  forbidden  to  take  an  oath 
of  obedience  to  the  rectors,  but  the  masters,  who, 
in  theory,  possessed  rights  of  jurisdiction  over  their 


/ 


26     LIFE  IN  THE  MEDIEVAL  UNIVERSITY 

pupils,  were,  in  fact,  compelled  by  the  universities 
to  take  this  oath.  Even  those  of  them  who  received 
salaries  from  the  town  were  not  exempted.  A 
doctor  who  refused  to  take  a  vow  of  obedience 
to  the  representative  of  his  pupils  had  no  means 
of  collecting  his  lecture-fees,  which  remained  of  some 
importance  even  after  the  introduction  of  salaries, 
and  he  was  liable  to  further  punishment  at  the 
will  of  the  Rector.  The  ultimate  penalty  was 
deprivatio,  and  when  this  sentence  was  pronounced, 
not  only  were  the  lectures  of  the  offending  doctor 
boycotted,  but  aU  social  intercourse  with  him  was 
forbidden  ;  students  must  avoid  his  company  in 
private  as  well  as  decline  his  ministrations  in  the 
Studium.  His  restoration  could  only  be  accom- 
plished by  a  vote  of  the  whole  University  solemnly 
assembled  in  Congregation./ 

The  oath  of  obedience  was  not  merely  a  con- 
stitutional weapon  kept  in  reserve  for  occasional 
serious  disputes  ;  it  affected  the  daily  life  of  the 
Studium,  and  the  masters  were  subject  to  numerous 
petty  indignities,  which  could  not  fail,  to  impress 
our  English  student  if  he  was  familiar  with  Univer- 
sity life  in  his  own  country.  He  would  see,  with 
surprise,  a  doctor's  lecture  interrupted  by  the  arrival 
of  a  University  Bedel,  as  the  debates  of  the  House 
of  Comm_ons  are  interrupted  by  the  arrival  of  Black 
Rod,  and  his  instructor  would  maintain  a  reverenx 


LIFE  IN  THE  STUDENT-UNIVERSITIES     27 

silence  while  the  Rector's  officer  dehvered  some 
message  from  the  University,  or  informed  the  pro- 
fessor of  some  new  regulation.  If  the  learned 
doctor  "  cut ''  a  lecture,  our  student  would  find 
himself  compelled  to  inform  the  authorities  of  the 
University,  and  he  would  hear  of  fines  inflicted  upon 
the  doctors  for  absence,  for  lateness,  for  attracting 
too  small  an  audience,  for  omitting  portions  of 
a  subject  or  avoiding  the  elucidation  of  its  difficul- 
ties, and  for  inattention  while  the  "  precepta  ''  or 
"  mandata  ''  of  the  Rector  were  being  read  in  the 
schools.  He  and  his  fellow-students  might  graci- 
ously grant  their  master  a  holiday,  but  the  permis- 
sion had  to  be  confirmed  by  the  Rector  ;  if  a  lecture 
was  prolonged  a  minute  after  the  appointed  time, 
the  doctor  found  himself  addressing  empty  benches. 
The  humiliation  of  the  master's  position  was  in- 
creased by  the  fact  that  his  pupils  were  always 
acting  as  spies  upon  him,  and  they  were  themselves 
liable  to  penalities  for  conniving  at  any  infringe- 
m^ent  of  the  regulations  on  his  part.  At  Bologna, 
even  the  privilege  of  teaching  was,  to  a  slight  extent, 
shared  by  the  doctors  with  their  pupils.  Lectures 
were  divided  into  two  classes,  ordinary  and  extra- 
ordinary ;  the  ordinary  lectures  were  the  duty  of 
the  doctors,  but  senior  students  (bachelors)  were 
authorised  by  the  Rector  to  share  with  the  doctors 
the  duty  of  giving  extra-ordinary  lectures.     There 


28    LIFE  IN  THE  MEDIEVAL  UNIVERSITY 

were  six  chairs,  endowed  by  the  city,  which  were 
held  by  students,  and  the  occupant  of  one  of  these 
was  entitled  to  dehver  ordinary  lectures.  Dr 
Rashdall  finds  the  explanation  of  this  anomaly  in 
an  incident  in  the  fourteenth  century  history  of 
Bologna,  when  the  Tyrant  of  the  City  forbade  the 
professors  to  teach.  The  student-chairs  were  rather 
endowments  for  the  Rectorship  or  for  poor  scholars 
than  serious  rivals  to  the  ordinary  professorships, 
and  the  extra- ordinary  lectures  delivered  by  students 
or  bachelors  may  be  regarded  as  a  kind  of  apprentice- 
ship for  future  doctors.     .. 

There  remained  one  department  of  the  work  of 
the  Studium  in  which  our  Bologna  student  would 
I  find  his  masters  supreme.  The  sacred  right  of 
[  examining  stiU  belonged  to  the  teachers,  even 
though  the  essential  purpose  of  the  examination  was 
changed.  The  doctors  of  Bologna  had  succeeded 
in  preserving  the  right  to  teach  as  a  privilege  of 
Bolognese  citizens  and  even  of  restricting  it,  to  some 
extent,  to  certain  families,  and  the  foreign  student 
could  not  hope  to  become  a  professor  of  his  own 
studium.  But  the  prestige  of  the  University 
rendered  Bolognese  students  ambitious  of  the 
doctorate,  and  the  doctorate  had  come  to  mean 
more  than  a  mere  licence  to  teach.  This  Hcence, 
which  had  originally  been  conferred  by  the  doctors 
themselves,   required,   after   the   issue   of   a   Papal 


LIFE  m  THE  STUDENT- UNIVERSITIES    29 

Bull  in  1219,  the  consent  of  the  Archdeacon  of 
Bologna,  and  the  Papal  grant  of  the  jus  uhique 
docendi  in  1292  increased  at  once  the  importance 
of  the  mastership  and  of  the  authority  of  the  Arch- 
deacon, who  came  to  be  described  as  the  Chancellor 
and  Head  of  the  Studium.  "  Graduation,''  in  Dr 
RashdalFs  words,  "  ceased  to  imply  the  mere  ad- 
mission into  a  private  Society  of  teachers,  and 
bestowed  a  definite  legal  status  in  the  eyes  of  Church 
and  State  ahke.  .  .  .  The  Universities  passed  from 
merely  local  into  ecumenical  organisations ;  the 
Doctorate  became  an  order  of  intellectual  nobility 
with  as  distinct  and  definite  a  place  in  the  hier- 
archical system  of  medieval  Christendom  as  the 
Priesthood  or  the  Knighthood/'  The  Archdeacon 
of  Bologna,  even  when  he  was  regarded  as  the 
Chancellor,  did  not  wrest  from  the  college  of  doctors 
the  right  to  decide  who  should  be  deemed  worthy  of 
a  title  which  Cardinals  were  pleased  to  possess.  ' 
The  licence  which  he  required  before  admitting  a 
student  to  the  doctorate  continued  to  be  conferred  r 
by  the  Bologna  doctors  after  due  examination. 

We  will  assume  that  our  EngUsh  student  has  now 
completed  his  course  of  study.  He  has  duly  at- 
tended the  prescribed  lectures — not  less  than  three 
a  week.  He  has  gone  in  the  early  mornings,  when 
the  bell  at  St  Peter's  Church  was  ringing  for  mass, 
to  spend  some  two  hours  listening  to  the  "  ordinary  " 


30    LIFE  IN  THE  MEDIEVAL  UNIVERSITY 

lecture  delivered  by  a  doctor  in  his  own  house 
or  in  a  hired  room  ;  his  successors  a  generation  or 
two  later  would  find  buildings  erected  by  the  Univer- 
sity for  the  purpose.  The  rest  of  his  morning  and 
an  hour  or  two  in  the  afternoon  have  also,  if  he  is  an 
industrious  student,  been  devoted  to  lectures,  and 
he  has  not  been  neglectful  of  private  study.  He  ha^ 
enjoyed  the  numerous  holidays  afforded  by  the 
Feasts  of  the  Church,  and  several  vacations  in  the 
course  of  the  year,  including  ten  days  at  Christmas, 
a  fortnight  at  Easter,  and  about  six  weeks  in  the 
autumn.  After  five  years  of  study,  if  he  is  a  civilian, 
\  and  four  if  he  is  a  canonist,  the  Rector  has  raised 
him  to  the  dignity  of  a  Bachelor  by  permitting  him 
to  give  "  extra-ordinary  ''  lectures — and  after  two 
more  years  spent  in  this  capacity  he  is  ready  to 
proceed  to  the  doctorate.  The  Rector,  having  been 
satisfied  by  the  EngHsh  representative  in  his  Council 
that  the  "  doctorand ''  has  performed  the  whole 
duty  of  the  Bolognese  student,  gives  him  permission 
to  enter  for  the  first  or  Private  Examination,  and 
he  again  takes  the  oath  of  obedience  to  that  dignitary. 
The  doctor  under  whom  he  has  studied  vouches  for 
his  competence,  and  presents  him  first  to  the  Arch- 
deacon and  some  days  afterwards  to  the  College  of 
Doctors,  before  whom  he  takes  a  solemn  oath  never 
to  seek  admittance  into  the  Bolognese  College  of 
Doctors,  or  to  teach,  or  attempt  to  perform  any  of 


LIFE  IN  THE  STUDENT-UNIVERSITIES    31 

the  functions  of  a  doctor,  at  Bologna.  They  then 
give  him  a  passage  for  exposition  and  send  him 
home.  He  is  followed  to  his  house  by  his  own  doctor 
who  hears  his  exposition  in  private,  and  brings 
him  back  to  the  august  presence  of  the  College 
of  Doctors  and  the  Archdeacon.  Here  he  treats 
his  thesis  and  is  examined  upon  it  by  two  or 
more  doctors,  v/ho  are  ordered  by  the  University 
statutes  not  to  treat  any  victim  of  this  rigorous 
and  tremendous  examination  otherwise  than  if  he 
were  their  oAvn  son,  and  are  threatened  with  grave 
penalties,  including  suspension  for  a  year.  The 
College  then  votes  upon  his  case,  each  doctor  saying 
openly  and  clearly,  and  without  any  qualification, 
"  Approbo  ''  or  "  Reprobo,"'  and  if  the  decision  is 
favourable  he  is  now  a  Licentiate  and  has  to  face 
only  the  expensive  but  not  otherwise  formidable 
ordeal  of  the  second  or  Public  Examination.  As  a 
newly  appointed  Scottish  judge  is,  to  this  day, 
admitted  to  his  office  b}^  trying  cases,  so  the  Bologna 
doctor  was  admitted  to  his  new  dignity  by  an 
exercise  in  lecturing.  The  idea  is  common  to  many 
medieval  institutions,  and  it  survived  at  Bologna, 
even  though  the  licentiate  had,  at  his  private 
examination,  renounced  the  right  of  teaching. 
Our  Englishmxan  and  his  socii  go  together  to  the 
Cathedral,  where  he  states  a  thesis  and  defends  it 
against  the  attacks  of  other  licentiates.     His  own 


32     LIFE  IN  THE  MEDIEVAL  UNIVERSITY 

doctor,  known  in  Bologna  (and  elsewhere)  as  the 
Promotor,  presents  him  to  the  Chancellor,  who 
confers  upon  him  the  jus  uhique  docendi.  He  is 
then  seated  in  a  master's  chair,  and  the  Promotor 
gives  him  an  open  book  and  a  gold  ring  and  (in 
the  terminology  of  a  modern  Scottish  University) 
"  caps  ''  him  with  the  biretta.  He  is  dismissed  with 
a  benediction  and  the  kiss  of  peace,  and  is  con- 
ducted through  the  town,  in  triumphal  procession, 
by  his  friends,  to  whom  he  gives  a  feast. 

The  feast  adds  very  considerably  to  the  expenses 
of  the  doctorate,  for  which  fees  are,  of  course,  ex- 
acted by  the  authorities  of  the  University,  the 
College  of  Doctors,  and  the  Archdeacon.  A  con- 
siderable proportion  of  the  disciplinary  regulations, 
made  by  the  student-universities,  aimed  at  restrict- 
ing the  expenditure  on  feasting  at  the  inception 
of  a  new  doctor  and  on  other  occasions.  When  our 
young  English  Doctorand  received  the  permission 
of  his  Rector  to  proceed  to  his  degree,  he  was  made 
to  promise  not  to  exceed  the  proper  expenditure  on 
fees  and  feasts,  and  he  was  expressly  forbidden  to 
organise  a  tournament.  The  spending  of  money 
on  extravagant  costume  was  also  prohibited  by 
the  statutes  of  the  University,  which  forbade  a 
student  to  purchase,  either  directly  or  through  an 
agent,  any  costume  other  than  the  ordinary  black 
garment,    or   any   outer   covering    other   than   the 


LIFE  IN  THE  STUDENT-UNIVERSITIES    33 

black  cappa  or  gabard.  Other  discipKnary  restric- 
tions at  Bologna  dealt  with  quarrelling  and  gambling. 
The  debates  of  Congregation  were  not  to  be  liable 
to  interruption  by  one  student  stabbing  his  opponent 
in  Italian  fashion,  and  no  one  was  allowed  to  carry 
arms  to  a  meeting  of  Congregation  ;  if  a  student 
had  reason  to  apprehend  personal  violence  from 
another,  the  Rector  could  give  him  a  dispensation 
from  the  necessity  of  attendance.  Gaming  and 
borrowing  from  unauthorised  money-lenders  were 
strictly  forbidden  ;  to  enter  a  gaming-house,  or  to 
keep  one,  or  to  watch  a  game  of  dice  was  strictly 
forbidden.  The  University  of  Arts  and  Medicine 
granted  a  dispensation  for  three  days  at  Christmas, 
and  a  Rector  might  use  his  own  discretion  in  the 
matter.  The  penalties  were  fines,  and  for  contumacy 
or  grave  offences,  suspension  or  expulsion. 

There  are  indications  that  the  conduct  of  the 
doctors  in  these  respects  was  not  above  suspicion  ; 
they  were  expressly  prohibited  from  keeping  gaming- 
houses ;  and  the  appointment  of  four  merchants 
of  the  town,  who  alone  were  empowered  to  lend 
money  to  students,  was  a  protection  not  only  against 
ordinary  usurers,  but  also  against  doctors  who 
lent  money  to  students  in  order  to  attract  them  to 
their  lectures.  That  the  ignominious  position  of 
the  Bologna  doctors  had  an  evil  effect  upon  their 
morals,  is  evident  not  only  from  this,  but  also  from 
c 


34     LIFE  IN  THE  MEDIEVAL  UNIVERSITY 

the  existence  of  bribery,  in  connection  with  examina- 
tions for  the  doctorate,  although  corruption  of  this 
kind  was  not  confined  to  the  student-universities. 

The  regulations  of  the  greatest  of  the  residential 
colleges  of  Bologna,  the  College  of  Spain,  naturally 
interfere  much  more  with  individual  liberty  than 
do  the  statutes  of  the  student- universities,  even 
though  the  government  of  the  College  was  a 
democracy,  based  upon  the  democratic  constitution 
of  the  University.  We  shall  have  an  opportunity 
of  referring  to  the  disciphne  of  the  Spanish  College 
when  we  deal  with  the  College  system  in  the  northern 
universities,  and  meanwhile  we  pass  to  some  illustra- 
tions of  life  in  student-universities  elsewhere  than 
at  Bologna. 

At  Padua  we  find  a  "  Schools-peace  "  like  the 
special  peace  of  the  highway  or  the  market  in 
medieval  England ;  special  penalties  were  pre- 
scribed for  attacks  on  scholars  in  the  Schools,  or 
going  to  or  returning  from  the  Schools  at  the 
accustomed  hours.  The  presence  of  the  Rector 
also  made  a  sHght  attack  count  as  an  "  atrocious 
injury."'  The  University  threatened  to  interdict, 
for  ten  years,  the  ten  houses  nearest  to  the  place 
where  a  scholar  was  killed  ;  if  he  was  wounded  the 
period  was  four  or  six  years.  At  Florence,  where 
the  Faculty  of  Medicine  was  very  important,  there 
is  an  interesting  provision  for  the  study  of  anatomy. 


LIFE  IN  THE  STUDENT-UNIVERSITIES    35 

An  agreement  was  made  with  the  town,  by  which 
the  students  of  Medicine  were  to  have  two  corpses 
every  year,  one  male  and  one  female.  The  bodies 
were  to  be  those  of  malefactors,  who  gained,  to  some 
extent,  by  the  arrangement,  for  the  woman's  penalty 
was  to  be  changed  from  burning,  and  the  man's 
from  decapitation,  to  hanging.  A  pathetic  clause 
provides  that  the  criminals  are  not  to  be  natives 
of  Florence,  but  of  captive  race,  with  few  friends 
or  relations.  If  the  number  of  medical  students 
increased,  they  were  to  have  two  male  bodies.  At 
Florence,  as  almost  everywhere,  we  find  regulations 
against  gambling,  but  an  exception  was  made  for 
the  Kalends  of  May  and  the  days  immediately  before 
and  after,  and  no  penalty  could  be  inflicted  for 
gambling  in  the  house  of  the  Rector.  The  records 
of  Florence  afford  an  illustration  of  the  checks 
upon  the  rectorial  power,  to  which  we  have  referred 
in  speaking  of  the  typical  Student-University  at 
Bologna.  In  1433,  a  series  of  complaints  were 
brought  against  a  certain  Hieronimus  who  had 
just  completed  his  year  of  office  as  Rector,  and  a 
Syndicate,  consisting  of  a  Doctor  of  Decrees  (who 
was  also  a  scholar  in  civil  law),  a  scholar  in  Canon 
Law,  and  a  scholar  in  Medicine,  was  appointed  to 
inquire  into  the  conduct  of  the  late  Rector  and  of 
his  two  Camerarii.  The  accusations  were  both 
general  and  personal,  and  the  S3nidics,  after  deciding 


36     LIFE  IN  THE  MEDIEVAL  UNIVERSITY 

that  Hieronimus  must  restore  eight  silver  grossi 
of  University  money  which  he  had  appropriated, 
proceeded  to  hear  the  charges  brought  by  individuals. 
A  lecturer  in  the  University  complained  that  the 
Rector  had  unjustly  and  maliciously  given  a  sentence 
against  him  and  in  favour  of  a  Greek  residing  at 
Florence,  and  that  he  had  unjustly  declared  him 
perjured  ;  fifty  gold  florins  were  awarded  as  damages 
for  this  and  some  other  injuries.  A  doctor  of 
Arts  and  Medicine  obtained  a  judgment  for  two 
florins  for  expenses  incurred  when  the  Rector  was 
in  his  house.  A  student  complained  that  he  had 
been  denounced  as  "  infamis  ''  in  all  the  Schools 
for  not  paying  his  matriculation-fee,  and  that  his 
name  had  been  entered  in  the  book  called  the 
"  Speculum."  The  Syndics  ordered  the  record  of 
his  punishment  to  be  erased.  The  most  interesting 
case  is  that  of  a  student  of  Civil  Law,  caUed  Andreas 
Romuli  de  Lancisca.  He  averred  that  he  had  sold 
Hieronimus  six  measures  of  grain,  to  be  paid  for 
at  the  customary  price.  After  four  months'  delay, 
the  Rector  paid  seven  pounds,  and  when  asked  to 
complete  the  payment,  gave  Andreas  a  book  of 
medicine,  "  for  which  I  got  five  florins."  Some  days 
later  he  demanded  the  return  of  the  book,  to  which 
Andreas  replied  :  "  Date  mihi  residuum  et  Hbenter 
restituam  librum."  To  this  request  the  Rector, 
"  in  superbiam  elevatus,"  answered,   "  Tu   reddes 


LIFE  IN  THE  STUDENT-UNIVERSITIES    37 

librum  et  non  solvam  tibi/'  The  quarrel  con- 
tinued, and  one  morning,  when  Andreas  was  in  the 
Schools  at  a  lecture,  Hieronimus  sent  the  servant 
of  the  Podesta,  who  seized  him  "  ignominiose  et 
vituperose  ''  in  the  Schools  and  conducted  him  to 
the  town  prison  like  a  common  thief.  For  all  these 
injuries  Andreas  craved  redress  and  a  sum  of  forty 
florins.  The  damages,  he  thought,  should  be  high, 
not  merely  for  his  personal  wrongs,  but  also  for  the 
insult  to  the  scholar's  dress  which  he  wore,  and, 
indeed,  to  the  whole  University.  He  was  allowed 
twenty  pounds  in  addition  to  the  sum  due  for  the 
grain.  The  Syndicate  of  1433  must  have  been  an 
extreme  case  ;  matters  were  compHcated  by  the  fact 
that  the  Rector's  brother  was  "  Executor  Ordina- 
mentorum  Justitiae  Civitatis  Florentiae,''  and  he  was 
therefore  suspected  of  playing  into  the  hands  of  the 
city.  But  the  knowledge  that  such  an  investigation 
was  possible  must  have  restrained  the  arbitrary 
tendencies  of  a  Rector. 

A  reference  to  the  imitation  of  the  Bolognese 
constitution  in  Spain  must  close  this  portion  of  our 
survey.  At  Lerida,  in  the  earHest  code  of  statutes 
(about  1300),  we  find  the  doctors  and  master  sworn 
to  obey  the  Rector,  who  can  fine  them,  though 
he  must  not  expel  them  without  the  consent  of  the 
whole  University.  Any  improper  criticisms  of  the 
Rector   ("  verba   injuriosa  vel   contumeliosa ")  by 


38     LIFE  IN  THE  MEDIEVAL  UNIVERSITY 

anyone,  of  whatsoever  dignity,  are  to  be  punished 
by  suspension  until  satisfaction  is  made,  and  so 
great  is  the  glory  of  the  office  ("  Rectoris  officium 
tanta  [excellentia]  prsefulget '')  that  an  ex- Rector 
is  not  bound  to  take  the  oath  to  his  successor. 
The  regulations  affecting  undergraduates  are  more 
detailed  than  at  Bologna,  and  indicate  a  stricter 
discipUne.  After  eight  days'  attendance  at  a 
doctor's  lecture,  a  student  must  not  forsake  it  to  go 
to  another  doctor  ;  no  scholar  is  to  go  to  the  School 
on  horseback  unless  for  some  urgent  cause  ;  scholars 
are  not  to  give  anything  to  actors  or  jesters  or  other 
"  truffatores  "  (troubadours),  nor  to  invite  them  to 
meals,  except  on  the  feasts  of  Christmas,  Easter,  and 
Pentecost,  or  at  the  election  of  a  Rector,  or  when 
doctors  or  masters  are  created.  Even  on  these 
occasions  only  food  may  be  given,  although  an 
ordinance  of  the  second  Rector  allows  doctors  and 
masters  to  give  them  money.  No  students,  except 
boys  under  fourteen,  are  to  be  allowed  to  play  at 
ball  in  the  city  on  St  Nicholas'  day  or  St  Katherine's 
day,  and  none  are  to  indulge  in  unbecoming  amuse- 
ments, or  to  walk  about  dressed  up  as  Jews  or 
Saracens — a  rule  which  is  also  found  in  the  statutes 
of  the  University  of  Perpignan.  If  scholars  are 
found  bearing  arms  by  day  in  the  students'  quarter 
of  the  town,  they  are  to  forfeit  their  arms,  and  if 
they  are  found  at  night  with  either  arms  or  musical 


LIFE  IN  THE  STUDENT-UNIVERSITIES    39 

instruments  in  the  students'  quarter,  they  are  to 
forfeit  arms  or  instruments.  If  they  are  found 
outside  their  own  quarters,  by  night  or  by  day,  with 
arms  or  musical  instruments,  the  town  officials  wiU 
deal  with  laymen,  and  the  Bishop  or  the  Rector  with 
clerks.  Laymen  might  be  either  students  or  doctors 
in  Spain  as  in  Italy  ;  at  Salamanca,  a  lecturer's 
marriage  was  included  among  the  necessary  causes 
which  excused  a  temporary  absence  from  his  duties. 
In  the  universities  of  Southern  France,  the  marriage 
of  resident  doctors  and  students  was  also  contem- 
plated, and  the  statutes  of  the  University  of  Aix 
contain  a  table  of  charges  payable  as  "  charivari '' 
by  a  rector,  a  doctor,  a  hcentiate,  a  bachelor,  a 
student,  and  a  bedel.  In  each  case  the  amount 
payable  for  marrying  a  widow  was  double  the 
ordinary  fee.  If  the  bridegroom  decHned  to  pay,  the 
"  dominus  promotor,''  accompanied  by  "  dominis 
studentibus,''  was,  by  permission  of  the  Rector,  to 
go  to  his  house  armed  with  frying-pans,  bassoons, 
and  horns,  and  to  make  a  great  tumult,  without, 
however,  doing  any  injury  to  his  neighbours.  Con- 
tinued recusancy  was  to  be  punished  by  placing 
filth  outside  the  culprit's  door  on  feast-days.  In 
the  University  of  Dole,  there  was  a  married  Rector 
in  1485,  but  this  was  by  a  special  dispensation. 
There  are  traces  of  the  existence  of  married  under- 
graduates at  Oxford  in  the  fifteenth  century,  and, 


40     LIFE  IN  THE  MEDIEVAL  UNIVERSITY 

• )  *>. 

in^e  same  century,  marriage  was  permitted  in  the 
Faculty  of  Medicine  at  Paris,  but  the  insistence  upon 
celibacy  in  the  northern  universities  is  one  of  the 
characteristic  differences  between  them  and  the 
universities  of  Southern  Europe. 


CHAPTER  III 

THE   UNIVERSITIES    OF   MASTERS 

The  Guild  or  Universitas  which  grew  up  in  the 
Studium  Generale  of  Paris  was  a  Society  of  masters, 
not  of  students.  The  Studium  Generale  was,  in 
origin,  connected  with  the  Cathedral  Schools,  and 
recognition  as  a  Master  was  granted  by  the  Chancellor 
of  the  Cathedral,  whose  duty  it  was  to  confer  it 
upon  every  competent  scholar  who  asked  for  it. 
The  successful  applicant  was  admitted  by  the 
existing  masters  into  their  Society,  and  this  ad- 
mission or  inception  was  the  origin  of  degrees  in 
the  University  of  Paris.  The  date  of  the  growth 
of  an  organised  Guild  is  uncertain  ;  Dr  Rashdall, 
after  a  survey  of  the  evidence,  concludes  that  "  it 
is  a  fairly  safe  inference  that  the  period  1150-1170 
— probably  the  latter  years  of  that  period — saw  the 
birth  of  the  University  of  Paris.''  Such  organisa- 
tion as  existed  in  the  twelfth  century  was  slight  and 
customary,  depending,  as  the  student-universities 
of  Bologna  and  in  other  medieval  guilds,  upon  no 
external  authority.  The  successors  of  these  early 
masters,  writing  in  the  middle  of  the  thirteenth 
century,  relate  how  their  predecessors,  men  reverend 

41 


42     LIFE  m  THE  MEDIEVAL  UNIVERSITY 

in  character  and  famous  for  learning,  decided,  as 
the   number   of   their  pupils   increased,   that   they 
could  do  their  work  better  if  they  became  a  united 
body,  and  that  they  therefore  formed  themselves 
into  a  College  or  University,  on  which  Church  and 
State    conferred    many    privileges.     The    bond    of 
union  they  describe  as  a  "  jus  speciale  ""  ("  si  quodam 
essent   juris   specialis   vinculo   sociati ''),    and   this 
conception  explains  the  appearance  of  their  earliest 
code  of  statutes  in  the  first  decade  of  the  thirteenth 
century.     The  Guild  of  masters  at  Paris,  Hke  the 
Guild  of  students  at  Bologna,  could  use  with  advan- 
tage the  threat  of  a  migration,  and,  after  a  violent 
quarrel  with  the  town  in  the  year  1200,  they  received 
special  privileges  from  Philip  Augustus.     Some  years 
later.  Pope  Innocent  III.  permitted  the  "  scholars 
of  Paris  "  to  elect  a  procurator  or  proctor  to  repre- 
sent their  interests  in   law-suits  at  Rome.     Litiga- 
tion at  Rome  was  connected  with  disputes  with  the 
Chancellor  of  the  Cathedral.     Already  the  scholars 
of  Paris  had  complained  to   the  Pope  about  the 
tyranny  of  the  Chancellor,  and  Innocent  had  sup- 
ported their  cause,  remarking  that  when  he  himself 
studied  at  Paris  he   had   never  heard  of   scholars 
being  treated  in  this  fashion.     It  moved  and  aston- 
ished the   Pope   not   a   Uttle   that   the   Chancellor 
should  attempt  to  exact  an  oath  of  obedience  and 
payment  of  money  from  the  masters,  and,  in  the 


THE  UNIVERSITIES  OF  MASTERS       43 

end,  that  official  was  compelled  to  give  up  his  claim 
to  demand  fees  or  oaths  of  fealty  or  obedience  for  a 
licence  to  teach,  and  to  relax  any  oaths  that  had 
already  been  taken.  The  masters,  as  Dr  Rashdall 
points  out,  already  possessed  the  weapon  of  boy- 
cotting, and  ordering  their  students  to  boycott, 
a  teacher  upon  whom  the  Chancellor  conferred  a 
Hcence  against  the  wish  of  their  guild,  but  they 
could  not  at  first  compel  him  to  grant  a  licence  to 
anyone  whom  they  desired  to  admit.  After  the 
Papal  intervention  of  1212,  the  Chancellor  was 
bound  to  licence  a  candidate  recommended  by  the 
masters. 

In  the  account  of  their  own  history,  from  which 
we  have  already  quoted,  the  Parisian  masters  speak 
of  their  venerable  "  gignasium  Htterarum "'  as 
divided  into  four  faculties.  Theology,  Law,  Medicine, 
and  Philosophy,  and  they  compare  the  four  streams 
of  learning  to  the  four  rivers  of  Paradise.  The 
largest  and  most  important  was  the  Faculty  of  Arts, 
and  the  masters  of  that  Faculty  were  the  protagonists 
in  the  struggle  with  the  Chancellor,  a  struggle  which 
continued  long  after  the  intervention  of  Innocent  III. 
In  the  course  of  this  long  and  successful  conflict, 
the  Faculty  of  Arts  developed  an  internal  organisa- 
tion, consisting  of  four  nations,  distinguished  as  the 
French,  the  Normans,  the  Picards,  and  the  English. 
Each  nation  elected  a  proctor,  and  the  four  proctors 


44    LIFE  IN  THE  MEDIEVAL  UNIVERSITY 

or  other  representatives  of  the  nations  elected  a 
Rector,  who  was  the  Head  of  the  Faculty  of  Arts. 
The  division  into  nations  and  the  title  of  Rector 
may  have  been  copied  from  Bologna,  but  the 
organisation  at  Paris  was  essentially  different.  The 
Parisian  nations  were  governed  by  masters,  not  by 
students,  and  whereas,  at  Bologna,  the  artists  were 
an  insignificant  minority,  at  Paris,  the  Rector 
became,  by  the  end  of  the  thirteenth  century,  the 
most  powerful  official  of  the  University,  and,  by  the 
middle  of  the  fourteenth,  was  recognised  as  its  Head. 
The  superior  Faculties  of  Theology,  Canon  Law,  and 
Medicine,  though  they  possessed  independent  con- 
stitutions under  their  own  Deans,  consisted  largely 
of  men  who  had  taken  a  Master's  or  a  Bachelor's 
degree  in  Arts,  and,  from  the  middle  of  the  thirteenth 
century,  they  took  an  oath  to  the  Rector,  which  was 
held  to  be  binding  even  after  they  became  doctors. 
The  non-artist  members  of  these  Faculties  were  not 
likely  to  be  able  to  resist  an  authority  whose  exist- 
ence was  generally  welcomed  as  the  centre  of  the 
opposition  to  the  Chancellor.  Ultimately,  the  whole 
University  passed  under  the  sway  of  the  Rector, 
and  the  power  of  the  Chancellor  was  restricted  to 
granting  the  jus  uhique  docendi  as  the  representative 
of  the  Pope.  Even  this  was  little  more  than  a 
formality,  for  the  Chancellor  "  ceased,''  says  Dr 
Rashdall,  "  to  have  any  real  control  over  the  grant 


THE  UNIVERSITIES  OF  MASTERS       45 

or  refusal  of  Licences,  except  in  so  far  as  he  retained 
the  nomination  of  the  Examiners  in  Arts/' 

At  Oxford,  the  University  was  also  a  Guild  of 
masters,  but  Oxford  was  not  a  cathedral  city,  and 
there  was  no  conflict  with  the  Bishop  or  the  Chan- 
cellor. In  the  end  of  the  twelfth  or  the  beginning 
of  the  thirteenth  century,  the  masters  of  the  Studium 
probably  elected  a  Rector  or  Head  in  imitation  of 
the  Parisian  Chancellor.  After  the  quarrel  with 
the  citizens,  which  led  to  the  migration  to  Cambridge, ' 
and  when  King  John  had  submitted  to  the  Pope, 
the  masters  were  able  to  obtain  an  ordinance  from 
the  Papal  legate  determining  the  punishment  of  the 
offenders,  and  providing  against  the  recurrence  of 
such  incidents.  The  legate  ordered  that  if  the 
citizens  should  seize  the  person  of  a  clerk,  his  sur- 
render might  be  demanded  by  "  the  Bishop  of 
Lincoln,  or  the  Archdeacon  of  the  place  or  his  Official, 
or  the  Chancellor,  or  whomsoever  the  Bishop  of 
Lincoln  shaU  depute  to  this  office."  The  clause 
lays  stress  upon  the  authority  of  the  Bishop  of 
Lincoln,  which  must  in  no  way  be  diminished  by 
any  action  of  the  townsmen.  The  ecclesiastical 
authority  of  the  Bishop  was  welcomed  by  the 
University  as  a  protection  against  the  town,  and 
the  Chancellor  was  too  far  away  from  Lincoln 
to  press  the  privileges  of  the  Diocese  or  the 
Cathedral  against  the  clerks  who  were  under  his 


46    LIFE  IN  THE  MEDIEVAL  UNIVERSITY 

special  care.  The  Oxford  Chancellor  was  a  master  of 
the  Studium,  and,  though  he  was  the  representative 
of  the  Bishop,  he  was  also  the  Head  of  the  masters' 
guild,  and  from  very  early  times  was  elected  by 
the  masters.  Thus  he  came  to  identify  himself 
with  the  University,  and  his  office  increased  in 
importance  as  privileges  were  conferred  upon  the 
University  by  kings  and  popes.  No  Rectorship 
grew  up  as  a  rival  to  the  Chancellorship,  though 
some  of  the  functions  of  the  Parisian  Rector  were 
performed  at  Oxford  by  the  Proctors.  There  were 
only  two  "  Nations ''  at  Oxford,  for  the  Oxford 
masters  were,  as  a  rule,  Englishmen  ;  men  from  north 
of  the  Trent  formed  the  Northern  Nation,  and  the 
rest  of  England  the  Southern  Nation.  Scotsmen 
were  classed  as  Northerners,  and  Welshmen  and 
Irishmen  as  Southerners.  The  division  into  Nations 
was  short-lived,  and  the  two  Rectors  or  Proctors, 
though  still  distinguished  as  Northern  and  Southern, 
soon  became  representatives  elected  by  the  whole 
Faculty  of  Arts.  As  at  Paris,  the  Faculty  of  Arts 
was  the  moving  spirit  in  the  University,  and  Theo- 
logy, Law,  and  Medicine  never  developed  at  Oxford 
any  independent  organisation.  The  proctors,  as 
Dr  Rashdall  has  shown,  thus  became  the  Executive 
of  the  University  as  a  whole,  and  not  merely  of  the 
Faculty  of  Arts. 

An  essential  difference  between  Bologna  and  its 


THE  UNIVERSITIES  OF  MASTERS       47 

two  great  northern  sisters  lies  in  the  fact  that,  at 
Paris  and  at  Oxford,  masters  and  scholars  ahke  were 
all  clerks,  possessing  the  tonsure  and  wearing  the 
clerical  garb,  though  not  necessarily  even  in  minor 
orders.  They  could  thus  claim  the  privileges  of 
ecclesiastical  jurisdiction,  and  at  Oxford  this  juris- 
diction was  exercised  by  the  Chancellor,  who  also, 
along  with  the  proctors,  was  responsible  for  academic 
discipline  and  could  settle  disputes  between 
members  of  the  University.  In  this,  the  Univer- 
sity of  Oxford  had  a  position  of  independence  which 
Paris  never  achieved,  for  though  the  Parisian 
Rector's  court  dealt  with  cases  of  discipKne  and 
with  internal  disputes,  criminal  jurisdiction  re- 
mained the  prerogative  of  the  Bishop.  In  the 
middle  of  the  fourteenth  century,  royal  grants  of 
privileges  to  the  University  of  Oxford  culminated 
in  the  subjection  of  the  city,  and  from  the  middle 
of  the  fifteenth  "  the  burghers  lived  in  their  own 
town  almost  as  the  helots  or  subjects  of  a  con- 
quering people.'"  {Cf.  Rashdall,  vol.  ii.  chap.  12, 
sec.  3).  The  constitution  of  Oxford  was  closely 
imitated  at  Cambridge,  where  the  Head  of  the 
University  was  also  the  Chancellor,  and  the  execu- 
tive consisted  of  two  rectors  or  proctors.  In  the 
fifteenth  century  the  University  freed  itseK  from  the 
ecclesiastical  jurisdiction  of  the  Bishop  of  Ely. 
Germany   possessed    no    universities    before    the 


48    LIFE  IN  THE  MEDIEVAL  UNIVERSITY 

fourteenth  century.  Prague  was  founded  in  1347-8, 
and  was  followed  before  1400  by  Vienna,  Erfurt, 
Heidelberg,  and  Cologne,  and  in  the  first  quarter  of 
the  next  century  by  Wiirzburg,  Leipsic,  Rostock, 
and  in  the  Low  Countries  by  Lou  vain.  The  first 
Scottish  University  dates  from  the  early  years  of 
the  fifteenth  century.  While  the  provincial  univer- 
sities of  France  tended  to  follow  Bologna  rather  than 
Paris  as  their  model,  the  German  universities 
approximated  to  the  Parisian  type,  and  although 
the  founders  of  the  Scottish  universities  were 
impressed  by  some  of  the  conditions  of  the  student- 
universities,  and  provided  for  them  a  theoretical 
place  in  their  constitutions,  yet  the  three  medieval 
Scottish  universities  of  Scotland,  in  their  actual 
working,  more  nearly  resembled  the  master  type. 


CHAPTER  IV 

COLLEGE   DISCIPLINE 

We  are  now  in  a  position  to  approach  the  main  part 
of   our  subject — hfe   in   a   medieval  University   of 
masters — and  we  propose  to  proceed  at  once  to  its 
most    characteristic    feature,    life    in    a    medieval 
College.     The  system  originated  in  Paris.     In  the 
early   days    of    the   University,    students    at    Paris 
lived  freely  in  private  houses,  which  a  number  of  * 
"  socii ''    hired    for    themselves.     A    record    of    a 
dispute  which  occurred  in  1336  shows  that  it  was 
usual  for  one  member  of  such  a  community  to  be 
responsible  for  the  rent,  "  tanquam  principalis  dictae 
domus,''  and  the  member  who  was  held  to  be  re- 
sponsible in  the  particular  case  is  described  as  a  . 
"  magister."     At  first  it  was  not  necessary  that  he 
should  be  a   master,  but  this   soon  became  usual, 
and  ultimately   (though  not   till  the   close   of   the 
Middle  Ages)  it  was  made  compulsory  by  the  Univer- 
sity.    Dr    Rashdall    has    drawn    attention    to    the 
democratic   character  of   these   Hospicia   or  Halls, 
the  members  of  which  elected  their  own  principal 
and  made  the  regulations  which  he  enforced.     This 
democratic  constitution  is  found  at  Oxford  as  well 
t^  '49 


50     LIFE  IN  THE  MEDIEVAL  UNIVERSITY 

as  at  Paris,  and  was,  indeed,  common  to  all  the 
early  universities.  When  a  benevolent  donor 
endowed  one  of  these  halls,  he  invariably  gave  it 
not  only  money,  but  regulations,  and  it  was  the 
existence  of  an  endowment  and  of  statutes  imposed 
by  an  external  authority  that  differentiated  the 
College  from  the  Hall.  The_earliest  College  founders 
did   not   necessarily    erect   any    building^s    for_fche 

scholars    for whose    weKare     they    provided ;      a 

CoUege  is  essentially  a  society,  and  not  a  building. 
The  quadrangular  shape  which  is  now  associated 
with  the  buildings  of  a  College  was  probably  sug- 
gested accidentally  by  the  development  of  Walter 
de  Merton's  College  at  Oxford  ;  but,  long  after  the 
foundation  of  Merton  College  in  1263  or  1264,  it 
was  not  considered  necessary  by  a  founder  to  build 
a  home  for  his  scholars,  who  secured  a  suitable 
lodging-house  (or  houses)  and  were  prepared  to 
migrate  should  such  a  step  become  desirable  in  the 
interest  of  the  University. 

The  statutes  of  Merton  provide  us  with  a  picture 
of  an  endowed  Hall  at  the  period  when  such  endow- 
ments were  beginning  to  change  the  character  of 
University  life.  The  conception  of  a  College,  as 
distinguished  from  the  older  Halls,  developed  very 
rapidly,  and  the  Founder's  provisions  for  the  organisa- 
tion of  his  society  were  altered  three  times  within 
ten  years.     In  1264,  Walter  de  Merton,  sometime 


COLLEGE  DISCIPLINE  51 

Chancellor  of  England,  drew  up  a  code  of  statutes 
for  the  foundation  of  a  house,  to  be  caUed  the  House 
of  the  Scholars  of  Merton.  His  motive  was  the 
good  of  Holy  Church  and  the  safety  of  the  souls  of 
his  benefactors  and  relations,  and  these  objects 
were  to  be  served  by  providing  for  the  maintenance 
of  tw^enty  poor  scholars  and  two  or  three  priests  in 
the  schools  of  Oxford,  or  elsewhere,  if  learning  should, 
in  these  days  of  civil  war,  flourish  elsewhere  than 
at  Oxford.  The  endowment  which  he  provided 
was  to  consist  of  his  manors  of  Maldon  and  Farleigh, 
in  Surrey,  to  which  was  added  the  Merton  estate, 
at  the  end  of  what  are  now  the  "  Backs "  in 
Cambridge.  This  was  purchased  in  1269-70.  The 
lands  were  given  to  his  scholars,  to  be  held  under 
certain  conditions,  in  their  own  na,me.  His  own 
kindred  were  to  have  the  first  claim  upon  places 
in  the  new  Society,  and,  after  them,  natives  of  the 
diocese  of  Winchester  ;  they  were  to  have  allow- 
ances of  forty  shiUings  each  per  annum,  to  hve 
together  in  a  Hall,  and  to  wear  uniform  garb  in 
token  of  unity  and  mutual  love.  As  vacancies 
arose,  by  death,  by  admission  into  a  religious 
order,  by  the  acceptance  of  livings  in  the  Church,  or 
by  appointments  in  other  calHngs,  they  were  to  be 
filled  up,  and  if  the  funds  of  the  society  permitted, 
the  numbers,  both  of  scholars  and  of  priests,  were 
to  be  increased.     Scholars  who  proved  to  be  in- 


52     LIFE  IN  THE  MEDIEVAL  UNIVERSITY 

corrigibly  idle,  or  who  led  evil  Kves,  were  to  be  de- 
prived ;  but  the  sick  and  infirm  were  to  be  treated 
generously,  and  any  of  the  Founder's  kin  who 
suffered  from  an  incurable  malady,  and  were  in- 
capable of  earning  an  honest  living  in  the  Studium 
or  elsewhere,  were  to  be  maintained  till  their  death. 
It  was  assumed  that  the  scholars  had  already  re- 
ceived the  preliminary  training  in  Latin  which  was 
necessary  for  their  studies,  but  provision  was  made 
for  the  elementary  instruction  of  poor  or  orphan 
boys  of  the  Founder's  kin,  until  they  were  ready  to 
enter  the  University.  Once  or  twice  a  year  all  the 
members  of  the  foundation  were  to  meet  and  say 
mass  for  their  Founder  and  his  benefactors,  Uving 
and  dead.  The  management  of  the  property  was 
entrusted  to  a  Warden,  who  was  to  reside  not  at 
Oxford  or  any  other  Studium  where  the  HaU 
might  happen  to  be,  but  at  Maldon  or  Farleigh. 
The  Warden  was  a  member  of  the  Society,  but  had 
no  authority  over  the  scholars,  except  that,  in  cases 
of  disputed  elections,  he,  or  the  Chancellor  or 
Rector  of  the  University  where  the  Hall  happened 
to  be  at  the  time,  was  to  act  on  the  advice  of  six  or 
seven  of  the  senior  scholars,  and  the  senior  scholars, 
rather  than  the  Warden,  were  looked  upon  by  the 
founder  as  the  natural  leaders  of  his  Society.  Every 
year,  eight  or  ten  of  the  seniors  were  to  go  to  Surrey 
to  stay  for  eight  days  to  inquire  into  the  manage- 


COLLEGE  DISCIPLINE  53 

ment  of  their  property,  and,  if  at  any  other  time, 
evil  rumours  about  the  conduct  of  the  Warden 
reached  the  HaU,  two  or  three  of  them  were  to  go 
to  investigate.  The  scholars  could,  with  the  con- 
sent of  the  Patron,  the  Bishop  of  Winchester,  bring 
about  the  deposition  of  the  Warden,  and  elections 
to  the  Wardenship  were  entrusted  to  the  twelve 
seniors.  They  were  to  consult  the  "  brothers " 
who  assisted  the  Warden  at  Merton,  and  were  also 
to  obtain  the  sanction  of  the  Bishop  of  Winchester. 
These  first  Merton  statutes  clearly  contemplate 
an  endowed  Hall,  differing  from  other  Halls  only 
in  the  existence  of  the  endowment.  Some  regula- 
tions are  necessary  in  order  that  the  tenure  of  the 
property  of  the  Society  may  be  secure  and  that  its 
funds  may  not  be  misapplied,  and  the  brief  code  of 
statutes  is  directed  to  these  ends.  Walter  de 
Merton's  earliest  rules  make  the  minimum  of  change 
in  existing  conditions.  But  the  preparation  of  this 
code  of  statutes  must  have  suggested  to  the  Founder 
that  his  generosity  gave  him  the  power  of  making 
more  elaborate  provisions.  The  Mendicant  Orders 
had  already  established  at  Oxford  and  at  Paris 
houses  for  their  own  members,  and  the  Monastic 
Orders  in  France  were  following  the  example  of  the 
Friars.  These  houses  were,  of  course,  governed  by 
minute  and  detailed  regulations,  and  it  may  have 
seemed  desirable,  to  introduce  some  stricter  discipline 


54    LIFE  IN  THE  MEDIEVAL  UNIVERSITY 

into  the  secular  halls.  At  all  events,  in  1270,  Walter 
de  Merton  took  the  opportunity  of  an  increase  in 
his  endowments  to  issue  a  code  of  statutes  more 
than  twice  as  long  as  that  of  1264.  These  new 
statutes  mark  a  distinct  advance  in  the  Founder's 
ideal  of  College  life.  The  Warden  becomes  a  much 
more  important  factor  in  the  conduct  of  the  Hall 
as  well  as  in  the  management  of  the  property  ;  in 
the  election  and  in  the  expulsion  of  scholars  he  is 
given  a  greater  place  ;  his  allowances  are  increased, 
and  his  presence  at  Oxford  seems  to  be  implied. 
The  scholars  are  to  proceed  from  Arts  to  Theology  ; 
four  or  five  of  them  may  be  permitted  to  study  the 
Canon  Law,  and  the  Warden  may  allow  some  of 
them  to  devote  some  time  to  the  Civil  Law.  Two 
Sub- Wardens  are  to  be  appointed,  one  at  Maldon 
and  one  in  Oxford  ;  Deans  are  to  watch  over  the 
morals  of  the  scholars,  and  senior  students  are  to 
preside  over  the  studies  of  the  freshmen.  The 
scholars  are  to  be  silent  at  meals  and  to  listen  to  a 
reader  ;  there  must  be  no  noise  in  their  chambers, 
and  a  senior  is  to  be  in  authority  in  each  chamber, 
and  to  report  breaches  of  regulations.  Conversation 
is  to  be  conducted  in  Latin. 

We  have  here  the  beginnings  of  a  new  system  of 
University  life,  and  we  can  trace  the  tendency 
towards  collegiate  discipline  still  more  clearly  in  the 
Founder's  statutes  of  1274,  which  a.re  much  longer 


COLLEGE  DISCIPLINE  55 

and  more  elaborate  than  in  1270.  The  scholars  or 
Fellows  are  now  to  obey  the  Warden,  as  their 
Superior  ;  the  Deans  and  the  seniors  in  chambers 
are  to  bear  rule  under  him  and,  in  the  first  instance, 
to  report  to  him  ;  the  Sub-Warden  is  to  take  his 
place  in  his  absence  and  to  assist  him  at  other 
times  ;  three  Bursars  are  to  help  him  in  the  manage- 
ment of  the  property.  The  Patron  or  Visitor  may 
inquire  into  the  conduct  of  the  Warden  or  into  any 
accusations  brought  against  him,  and  has  the  power 
of  depriving  him  of  his  office.  The  Warden  is  not 
an  absolute  sovereign  ;  the  thirteen  seniors  are 
associated  with  him  in  the  government  of  the  College, 
and  the  Sub-Warden  and  five  seniors  are  to  inspect 
his  accounts  once  a  year.  At  the  periodical  scrutinies, 
when  the  conduct  of  all  the  members  of  the  College 
is  to  be  examined,  accusations  can  be  brought 
against  him  and  duly  investigated.  This  custom, 
and  others  of  Walter  de  Merton's  regulations,  were 
clearly  borrowed  from  the  rules  of  monastic  houses, 
and  a  company  of  secular  clerks  seems  to  have  had 
difficulty  in  realising  that  they  were  bound  by  them, 
for  as  early  as  1284  the  Archbishop  of  Canterbury, 
^who  had  become  the  Visitor  of  the  College,  had  to 
issue  a  series  of  orders  for  the  observances  of  the 
statutes.  The  Warden  and  Fellows  of  Merton  had 
permitted  the  study  of  medicine  :  they  had  inter- 
preted too  liberally  the  permission  to  study  law  ; 


56     LIFE  IN  THE  MEDIEVAL  UNIVERSITY 

they  had  increased  their  own  allowances  and  the 
salaries  of  their  brewer  and  their  cook  ;  the  Fellows 
had  resisted  the  authority  of  the  Warden  ;  they  had 
neglected  the  attendances  at  divine  service  enjoined 
by  the  Founder,  and  they  had  been  lax  about 
expulsions.  The  change  which  Walter  de  Merton 
had  made  in  a  scholar's  life  was  so  far-reaching  that 
a  secular  would  probably  not  have  shared  the 
astonishment  of  Archbishop  Peckham  (himself  a 
friar)  at  the  unwillingness  of  the  Merton  scholars 
to  recognise  the  loss  of  their  traditional  freedom. 

The  system  inaugurated  by  Walter  de  Merton 
was  destined  to  have  a  great  development.  In  the 
document  of  1284,  Peckham  spea^ks  of  Merton  as  a 
"  College,''  and  its  Founder  was  the  founder  of  the 
Oxford  College  system.  Although  he  repeated  in 
his  last  statutes  his  permission  to  move  his  Society 
from  Oxford,  he  regarded  Oxford  as  its  permanent 
home.  Now  that  the  civil  war  was  over  and  England 
at  peace,  he  had,  he  says,  purchased  a  place  of 
habitation  and  a  house  at  Oxford,  "  where  a  Univer- 
sity of  students  is  flourishing."  Not  only  had  he 
provided  a  dwelling-place,  he  had  also  magnificently 
rebuilt  a  parish  church  to  serve  as  a  College-Chapel. 
The  example  he  set  was  followed  both  at  Oxford  and 
at  Cambridge,  and  the  rule  of  Merton  became  the 
model  on  which  College  founders  based  elaborate 
codes    of    statutes.      English    founders    generally 


COLLEGE  DISCIPLINE  57 

followed  Walter  de  Merton  in  making  their  societies 
selfrgoverning  communities,  with  an.  external  Visitor 
as  the  ultimate  court  of  appeal.  There  were  in 
many  colleges  "  poor  boys ''  who  were  taught 
grammar,  performed  menial  offices,  and  were  not 
members,  nor  always  eligible  for  election  as  members, 
of  the  Society ;  but  as  a  general  rule  the  Fellows 
or  Socii  all  had  a  share  in  the  management  of  the 
affairs  of  the  House.  Routine  business  was  fre- 
quently managed  by  the  Head,  the  officers,  and  a 
limited  number  of  the  Senior  Fellows,  but  the  whole 
•body  of  Fellows  took  part  in  the  election  of  a  new 
Head.  A  period  of  probation,  varying  from  one 
year  to  three,  was  generally  prescribed  before  an 
entrant  was  admitted  a  "  full  and  perpetual '' 
Fellow,  and  during  this  period  of  probation  he  had 
no  right  of  voting.  This  restriction  was  sometimes 
dispensed  with  in  the  case  of  "  Founder's  kin,"' 
who  became^  full  Fellows  at  once,  and  the  late  Sir 
Edward  Wingfield  used  to  boast  that  in  his  Fresh- 
man term  (1850)  he  had  twice  voted  in  opposition 
to  the  Warden  of  New  College  in  a  College  meeting. 
As  in  a  monastic  house,  this  freedom  was  combined 
with  a  strict  rule  of  obedience,  and  though  the 
Head  of  a  medieval  College  might  be  irritated  by 
incidents  of  this  kind,  he  possessed  great  dignity 
and  high  authority  within  his  domain.  As  founders 
did  more  for  their  students,  they  expected  a  larger 


58    LIFE  IN  THE  MEDIEVAL  UNIVERSITY 

obedience  from  them,  and  attempted  to  secure  it 
by  minute  regulations  ;  and  the  authority  of  the 
Head  of  the  College  increased  with  the  number  of 
rules  which  he  was  to  enforce.  The  foundation  of 
New  College  at  Oxford  in  1379  marks  the  com- 
pletion of  the  collegiate  ideal  which  had  advanced 
so  rapidly  under  the  successive  constitutions  of 
Merton  College  a  hundred  years  before.  William  of 
Wykeham,  in  providing  for  the  needs  of  his  scholars, 
availed  himself  of  the  experience  of  the  past  and 
created  a  new  model  for  the  future.  The  Fellows 
of  New  College  were  to  be  efficiently  equipped  at 
Winchester  for  the  studies  of  the  University,  and,  as 
we  shall  see,  they  were  to  receive  in  College  special 
instruction  in  addition  to  the  teaching  of  the 
University.  Their  magnificent  home  included, 
besides  their  living-rooms,  a  noble  chapel  and  hall, 
a  library,  a  garden,  and  a  beautiful  cloister  for 
religious  processions  and  for  the  burial  of  the  dead. 
King  Henry  VI.  built  a  still  more  magnificent  house 
for  his  Cambridge  scholars,  and  his  example  was 
followed  by  Henry  VIII.  The  later  College-founders, 
as  we  have  said,  expected  obedience  in  proportion  to 
their  munificence,  and  the  simpler  statutes  of  earlier 
colleges  were  frequently  revised  and  assimilated 
to  those  of  later  foundations.  We  reserve  for  a 
later  section  what  we  have  to  say  about  education, 
gjid  deal  here  with  habits  and  customs. 


COLLEGE  DISCIPLINE  59 

The  Merton  rule  that  conversation  must  be  in  Latin 
is  generally  found  in  College  statutes.  At  Peter- 
house,  French  might  occasionally  be  spoken,  should 
just  and  reasonable  cause  arise,  but  English  very 
rarely.  At  New  College,  Latin  was  to  be  spoken 
even  in  the  garden,  though  English  might  be  used 
in  addressing  a  layman.  At  Queen's  College,  Oxford, 
which  was  founded  by  a  courtier,  French  was  allowed 
as  a  regular  alternative  for  Latin,  and  at  Jesus 
College,  Oxford,  conversation  might  be  in  Greek, 
Latin,  or  Hebrew.  In  spite  of  the  influence  of  the 
Renaissance,  it  seems  unlikely  that  either  Greek  or 
Hebrew  was  much  used  as  an  alternative  to  Latin, 
but  the  Latin-speaking  rule  had  become  less  rigid, 
and  in  sixteenth-century  statutes  more  generous 
provision  is  made  for  dispensations  from  it.  The 
Latin  rule  was  not  merely  an  educational  method  ; 
it  was  deliberately  intended  to  be  a  check  upon  con- 
versation. College  founders  accepted  the  apostolic 
maxim  that  the  tongue  worketh  great  evil,  and 
they  were  convinced  that  a  golden  rule  of  silence 
was  a  protection  against  both  ribaldry  and  quarrels. 
In  the  later  statutes  of  Clare,  the  legislator 
recognises  that  not  merely  loss  of  time,  but  the 
creation  of  a  disposition  to  be  interested  in  trifles 
can  be  traced  to  "  frequentes  collocutiones,"  and 
he  forbids  any  meetings  in  bedrooms  (even  meetings 
of  Masters  of  Arts)  for  the  purpose  of  feasting  or  oi 


60    LIFE  IN  THE  MEDIEVAL  UNIVERSITY 

talking.  If  s,njone  wishes  to  receive  a  friend  at  \ 
dinner  or  supper,  he  must  apply  to  the  Master  for  ) 
leave,  and  such  leave  is  to  be  very  rarely  given. 
Conversation  in  Hall  was  prohibited  by  the  rule 
of  silence  and  by  the  provision  of  a  reader,  which 
we  have  already  found  at  Merton.  The  book 
read  was  almost  invariably  the  Bible.  William  of 
Wykeham,  who  was  followed  in  this,  as  in  other 
respects,  by  later  College  founders,  forbade  his 
scholars  to  remain  in  Hall  after  dinner  or  supper,  on 
the  ground  that  they  were  likely  to  talk  scandal  and 
quarrel ;  but  on  great  Feast  days,  when  a  fire  was 
allowed  in  the  Hall,  they  might  sit  round  and 
indulge  in  canticles  and  in  listening  to  poems  and 
chronicles  and  "  mundi  hujus  mirabilia.""  The 
words  of  the  statute  (which  reappear  in  those  of 
later  colleges)  seem  to  imply  that  even  on  winter 
evenings  a  fire  burned  in  the  Hall  only  on  Feast 
days,  and  the  medieval  student  must  have  suffered 
severely  from  cold.  There  were,  as  a  rule,  no  fire- 
places in  private  rooms  until  the  sixteenth  century, 
when  we  find  references  to  them,  e.g.  in  the  statutes 
of  Corpus  Christi  College,  Oxford  ;  and  the  wooden 
shutters  which  took  the  place  of  windows  shut  out 
the  scanty  hght  of  a  winter  day.  When  a  Disputa- 
tion (cf.  p.  146)  was  held  in  Hall  at  night,  a  fire 
was  lit,  but  we  are  not  told  how,  when  there  was 
no  Disputation   or  College  meeting,   the  medieval 


COLLEGE  DISCIPLINE  61 

student  spent  the  time  between  supper  and  the 
"  nightcap  ''  which  accompanied  Comphne.  Dinner 
was  at  ten  in  the  morning  and  supper  at  six  in  the 
evening.  Dr  Caius,  in  the  middle  of  the  sixteenth 
century,  ordered  his  students  to  be  in  bed  by  eight 
o'clock  in  the  evening,  and  "  early  to  bed  ''  must 
have  been  the  custom  on  winter  nights  in  a  medievaL 

College.     "  Earl^lo-idae wa.s  thsL stern  law,  even 

in  the  dark  mornings,  for  the  student's  day  began, 
"at  six  o^lock,  and  he  must  often  have  Hstened  to 
lectures~which  commenced  in  the  dark,  although 
dawn  overtook  the  lecturer  before  he  finished  his 
long  exposition.  In  early  times  there  was  no 
provision  for  breakfast,  and,  though  the  existence 
of  such  a  meal  is  distinctly  contemplated  in  the 
statutes  of  Queen's  College,  Oxford,  there  is  no 
hint  of  it  in  those  of  New  College.  Probably  some 
informal  meal  was  usual  everywhere,  and  was  either 
paid  for  privately  or  winked  at  by  the  authorities. 
The  absence  of  any  general  provision  for  breakfast 
led  to  its  being  taken  in  private  rooms  and  not  in 
Hall,  and  this  is  the  humble  origin  of  the  CoUege 
breakfast  party. 

The  number  of  occupants  of  a  single  room  varied 
in  different  colleges.  Special  provision  was  made 
in  later  College  statutes  for  the  Head  of  the  CoUege ; 
at  New  College  he  was  given  (for  the  first  time)  a 
separate  establishment  and  an  allowance  of  plate 


6^    LIFE  IN  THE  MEDIEVAL  UNIVERSITY 

and  kitchen  utensils  ;  he  was  to  dine  in  Hall  only  on 
some  twenty  great  Feasts  of  the  Church,  and  to  sit 
at  a  separate  table  on  these  occasions.  Henry  VI. 
followed  this  precedent  at  King's,  and  elsewhere 
we  find  that  the  Head  of  a  College  is  to  have  "  prin- 
cipalem  mansionem  ""  with  garden  and  stabling  for 
the  horses,  without  which  it  was  not  becoming  that 
he  should  travel  on  College  business.  It  was 
generally  the  duty  of  the  Head  to  apportion  the 
rooms  among  other  members  of  the  College,  and  to 
see  that  the  juniors  were  under  proper  supervision. 
At  Peterhouse,  and  in  many  other  colleges,  there 
were  to  be  two  in  each  chamber.  When  William  of 
Wykeham  built  on  a  large  scale,  he  ordered  that 
there  should  be  four  occupants  in  the  ground-floor 
rooms  and  three  in  the  first-floor  rooms.  At  King's, 
the  numbers  were  three  in  ground-floor  rooms  and 
two  in  first-floor  rooms.  At  Magdalen,  the  numbers 
were  the  same  as  at  New  College,  but  two  of  the  beds 
in  the  upper  rooms  and  one  in  the  lower  were  to  be 
"  lectuli  rot  ales,  Trookyll  beddys  vulgariter  appellati." 
Separate  beds  were  usually  provided,  though  some- 
times boys  under  fourteen  or  fifteen  years  of  age 
were  denied  this  luxury.  The  bedrooms  were  also 
studies  ;  at  Oxford  there  was  no  general  sitting-room, 
except  in  monastic  colleges,  though  Cambridge 
College  statutes  speak  of  a  "  parlura,"  correspond- 
ing to  the  modern  parlour  or  combination   room.- 


,  COLLEGE  DISCIPLINE  63 

Each  of  the  occupants  of  a  room  in  New  CoUege 
was  the  proprietor  of  a  small  window,  at  which  he 
worked,  probably  at  some  "  study ''  or  desk  Hke  the 
old  Winchester  "  toys."  The  rooms  had  four  windows 
and  four  "  studiorum  loca,''  and  the  general  tyi^e  of  a 
College  chamber,  after  the  foundation  of  New  College, 
was  a  room  with  one  large  window,  and  two,  three, 
or  four  small  windows  for  "  studies." 

A  large  proportion  of  the  care  of  statute-makers 
was  devoted  to  the  prohibition  of  amusements. 
The  statutes  of  Peterhouse  forbade  dogs  or  falcons, 
"for  if  one  can  have  them  in  the  House,  aU  will 
want  them,  and  so  there  wdll  arise  a  constant 
howling  "  to  disturb  the  studious.  Dice  and  chess, 
being  forbidden  games  to  clerks,  were  also  pro- 
hibited, and  the  scholars  of  Peterhouse  were  for- 
bidden to  frequent  taverns,  to  engage  in  trade,  to 
mix  with  actors,  or  to  attend  theatrical  performances. 
These  enactments  are  repeated  in  later  CoUege 
statutes,  with  such  additions  as  the  legislator's 
knowledge  of  human  nature  dictated  and  with 
occasional  explanations  of  some  interest  in  them- 
selves. The  keeping  of  dogs  is  often  described  as 
"  taking  the  children's  bread  and  gi\'ing  it  to  dogs," 
and  the  Founder  of  Queen's  College,  Oxford,  ordered 
that  no  animals  were  to  be  kept  under  the  Fellows' 
rooms,  since  purity  of  air  is  essential  for  study. 
WiUiam    of    Wykeham    expressly    forbade    chess. 


64     LIFE  IN  THE  MEDIEVAL  UNIVERSITY 

which   he  classed  with   games   leading  to  the   loss 
of  money  or  estate,  but  King  Henry  VI.,  who  made 
large  use  of  the  statutes  of  New  College,  omitted  the 
mention  of  chess  from  his  King's  College  statutes, 
while    he    added    to    Wykeham's    denunciation    of 
ferrets  and  hawks,  an  index  expurgatorius  of  animals 
which  included  monkeys,  bears,  wolves,  and  stags, 
and  he  expressly  forbade  nets  for  hunting  or  fishing. 
The  principle  on  which  modern  Deans  of   colleges 
have   sometimes   decided   that   "  gramophones   are 
dogs  ''  and  therefore  to  be  excluded  from  College, 
can   Ibe    traced    in    numerous    regulations    against 
musical  instruments,  which  disturb  the  peace  essen- 
tial to  learning.     That   the   medieval  student  felt 
the  temptations  of  "  ragging '"  in  much  the  same 
way  as  his  modern  successors,  appears  from  many 
threats  directed  against  those  who  throw  stones  and 
other  missiles  to  the  danger  of  the  buildings.     Wyke- 
ham  thought  it  necessary  to  forbid  the  throwing 
of  stones  in  Chapel,  to  the  danger  of  the  Avindows 
and  reredos,  and  for  the  safety  of  the  reredos  he 
prohibited  dancing  or  jumping  in  the  Hall,  which  is 
contiguous  to  the  Chapel.     Games  in  the  Hall  were 
also  forbidden  for  the  comfort  of  the  chaplains  who 
lived  in  the  rooms  underneath.     King  Henry  VI. 
forbade  dancing  or  jumping,  or  other  dangerous  and 
improper  games  in  the  Chapel,  cloister,  stalls,  and 
Hall  of  King's  College. 


COLLEGE  DISCIPLINE  66 

Other  disciplinary  regulations  common  to  all 
colleges  deal  with  carrying  arms,  unpunctuality, 
talking  during  the  reading  in  Hall  or  disturbing  the 
Chapel  services,  bringing  strangers  into  CoUege, 
sleeping  out  of  College,  absence  without  leave, 
negligence  and  idleness,  scurrilous  or  offensive 
language,  spilling  water  in  upper  rooms  to  the 
detriment  of  the  inhabitants  of  the  lower  rooms, 
and  failure  to  attend  the  regular  "  scrutinies  ''  or 
the  stated  general  meetings  for  College  business. 
At  these  scrutinies,  any  serious  charges  against 
members  of  the  Society  were  considered,  and  it  is 
in  keeping  with  some  of  the  judicial  ideas  of  the 
time  that  some  statutes  forbid  the  accused  person 
to  have  a  copy  of  the  indictment  against  him. 
For  contumacy,  for  grave  moral  offences,  for  crimes 
of  violence,  and  for  heresy,  the  penalty  was  ex- 
pulsion. Less  serious  offences  were  punished  by 
subtraction  of  "  commons,''  i.e.  deprivation  of  allow- 
ances for  a  day  or  a  week  (or  longer),  or  by  pecuniary 
fines.  When  College  founders  provided  clothes  as 
well  as  board  and  lodging  for  their  scholars,  the 
forfeiture  of  a  robe  took  its  place  among  the  penalties 
with  which  offenders  were  threatened.  The  "  poor 
boys  "  who  sang  in  Chapel  and  waited  on  the  Fellows 
were  whipped  hke  boys  elsewhere,  who  were  being 
taught  grammar,  but  the  birch  was  unknown  as  a 
punishment    for    undergraduates    tiU    late    in    the 


66    LIFE  IN  THE  MEDIEVAL  UNIVERSITY 

middle  ages.  The  introduction  of  corporal  punish- 
ment into  college  life  in  England  may  be  traced 
by  a  comparison  of  William  of  Wykeham's  statutes 
with  those  of  Henry  VI.  The  King's  College  statute 
"  De  correctionibus  faciendis  circa  delicta  leviora  " 
is  largely  a  transcript  of  a  New  College  statute, 
with  the  same  title,  and  both  contemplate  subtrac- 
tion of  commons  as  the  regular  penalty.  But  the 
King's  College  statute  contains  an  additional  clause, 
to  the  effect  that  scholars  and  younger  Fellows 
may  be  punished  with  stripes.  In  the  statutes  of 
Magdalen,  dated  some  seventeen  years  later,  William 
of  Waynflete  returned  to  the  New  College  form  of 
the  statute,  but  he  provided  that  his  demys  {i.e. 
scholars  who  received  half  the  commons  of  a  Fellow) 
should  be  subject  to  the  penalty  of  whipping  in  the 
Grammar  School.  The  statutes  of  Christ's  College 
prescribe  a  fine  of  a  farthing  for  unpunctuality  on 
the  part  of  the  scholars  studying  in  the  Faculty  of 
Arts,  and  heavier  fines  for  absence,  and  it  is  added 
that  if  the  offender  be  not  an  adult,  a  whipping  is 
to  be  substituted  for  the  pecuniary  penalty.  At 
Brasenose,  where  the  Fellows  were  all  of  the  stand- 
ing of  at  least  a  Bachelor  of  Arts,  the  undergraduate 
scholars  were  subjected  to  an  unusually  strict  dis- 
ciphne,  and  offenders  were  to  be  punished  either  by 
fines  or  by  the  rod,  the  Principal  deciding  the 
appropriate    punishment    in    each    case.     For    un- 


COLLEGE  DISCIPLINE  67 

punctuality,  for  negligence  and  idleness,  for  playing, 
laughing,  talking,  making  a  noise  or  speaking 
English  in  a  lecture-room,  for  insulting  fellow- 
students,  or  for  disobedience  to  his  pastors  and 
masters,  the  Brasenose  undergraduate  was  to  be 
promptly  flogged.  Among  thp  orimps  for  whiV.h 
the  birch  is  ordered  we  find  "  ma.king  odious  ootti- 
parisons/'  a  phrase  which  throws  some  light  on  the 
conversational  subjects  of  sixteenth-century  nnHpr- 
graduates.  The  kind  of  comparison  is  indicated 
in  the  statute  ;  remarks  about  the  country,  the 
family,  the  manners,  the  studies,  and  the  ability, 
or  the  person,  of  a  fellow-student  must  be  avoided. 
Similarly,  at  Jesus  College,  Cambridge,  it  is  forbidden 
to  compare  country  to  country,  race  to  race,  or 
science  to  science,  and  William  of  Wykeham  and 
other  founders  had  to  make  similar  injunctions. 
The  niedieval  student  was  distinctly  quarrelsome, 
and  such  records  as  the  famous  Merton  "  scrutiny  "' 
of  1339,  and  investigations  by  College  Visitors, 
show  that  the  seniors  set  the  undergraduates  a  bad 
example.  The  statutes  of  Corpus  Christi  College, 
Oxford,  provide  for  two  new  penalties.  An  offend- 
ing undergraduate  might  be  sentenced  to  feed  by 
himself,  at  a  small  table  in  the  middle  of  the  Hall, 
and  in  aggravated  cases  to  the  monastic  penalty 
of  bread  and  water.  An  alternative  penalty  was 
detention  in  the  library  at  the  most  inconvenient 


68    LIFE  IN  THE  MEDIEVAL  UNIVERSITY 

time  ("  per  horam  vel  horas  cum  minime  vellet "'), 
and  the  performance  of  an  imposition  to  be  shown 
up  in  due  course.  The  rough  and  ready  penalty 
of  the  birch  is,  however,  frequently  mentioned  in 
the  statutes  of  Corpus  and  of  other  sixteenth-century 
Colleges.  Cardinal  Wolsey  thought  it  proper  that 
an  undergraduate  should  be  whipped  until  he  had 
completed  his  twentieth  year.  At  Trinity,  Cam- 
bridge (where  offenders  were  sociably  flogged  before 
the  assembled  College  on  Friday  evenings)  the  age 
was  eighteen.  Dr  Caius  restricted  the  rod  to 
scholars  who  were  not  adult.  "  We  call  those 
adults,'"  he  says,  "  who  have  completed  their 
eighteenth  year.  For  before  that  age,  both  in 
ancient  times  and  in  our  own  memory,  youth  was 
not  accustomed  to  wear  hraccas,  being  content  with 
tibialia  reaching  to  the  knees.''  The  stern  dis- 
ciplinarian might  find  an  excuse  for  prolonging  the 
whipping  age  in  the  Founder  s  wish  that,  "  years 
alone  should  not  make  an  adult,  but  along  with 
years,  gravity  of  deportment  and  good  character." 
As  late  as  the  foundation  of  Pembroke  College  at 
Oxford  (1624)  whipping  is  the  penalty  contem- 
plated for  undergraduates  under  eighteen.  But 
when  we  come  to  the  statutes  which  were  drawn 
up  in  1698  with  a  view  to  the  foundation  of  .Wor- 
cester College,  not  only  is  there  no  mention  of  the 
birch,  but  even  pecuniary  penalties  are  deprd^cated 


COLLEGE  DISCIPLINE  69 

for  minor  offences,  for  which  impositions  and 
gating  are  suggested. 

Minor  penalties  were  enforced  by  the  Head  of  a 
college,  the  Vice-Head,  the  Deans,  and,  in  sixteenth- 
century  colleges,  by  the  tutors.  By  later  college 
statutes,  these  officers  received  for  their  personal 
use  a  portion  of  the  fines  they  inflicted,  and  appeals 
were  sometim.es  permitted  from  an  officer  to  the 
Head,  and  even  to  the  Chancellor  or  Vice-Chancellor 
of  the  University.  The  oath  taken  by  scholars 
frequently  bound  them  to  reveal  to  the  authorities, 
any  breach  of  the  statutes,  and  there  are  indications 
that  members  of  the  College  were  encouraged  to 
report  each  other's  misdeeds.  Thus  the  Master  of 
Christ's  is  to  fine  anyone  whom  he  hears  speaking 
one  complete  sentence  in  English,  or  anyone  whom 
he  may  know  to  have  been  guilty  of  this  offence, 
except  in  sleeping-rooms  or  at  times  when  permission 
had  been  given. 

Oxford  and  Cambridge  Colleges  were,  as  we  have 
seen,  endowed  homes  for  the  education  of  secular 
clerks.  All  of  them,  on  entrance,  had  to  have  the 
tonsure,  and  provision  was  often  made  for  the 
cutting  of  their  hair  and  beard.  At  Christ's  College, 
there  was  a  regular  College  barber  "  qui  .  .  .  caput 
et  barbam  radet  ac  tondebit  hebdomadis  singulis." 
They  wore  ordinary  clerical  dress,  and  undue  ex- 
penditure  on  clothes   and   ornaments   was   strictly 


70    LIFE  IN  THE  MEDIEVAL  UNIVERSITY 

prohibited,  e.g.  the  Fellows  of  Peterhouse  were 
forbidden  to  wear  rings  on  their  fingers  "  ad  inanem 
gloriam  et  jactantiam/'  The  early  founders  did 
not  insist  upon  Holy  Orders  for  the  Heads  or  Fellows 
of  their  colleges,  though  many  of  them  would 
naturally  proceed  to  the  priesthood,  but  in  later 
college  statutes  all  the  FelloAvs  were  ultimately  to 
proceed,  at  stated  times,  to  Holy  Orders  and  to  the 
priesthood,  though  dispensations  for  delay  might 
be  granted,  and  students  of  Medicine  were  sometimes 
excused  from  the  priesthood.  When  they  became 
priests  they  were,  like  other  priests,  to  celebrate 
mass  regularly  in  the  Chapel,  but  were  not  to  receive 
payment  for  celebrations  outside  the  College.  As 
mere  tonsured  undergraduates,  they  were  not,  at 
first,  subject  to  regulations  for  daily  attendance  at 
divine  service ;  but  later  founders  were  stricter 
in  this,  as  in  other  matters.  Bishop  Bateman,  who, 
in  the  middle  of  the  fourteenth  century,  legislated 
for  the  infant  Gonville  College,  ordered  that  every 
Fellow  should  hear  one  mass  daily  and  say  certain 
prayers,  and  in  his  own  foundation  of  Trinity  Hall, 
he  repeated  the  injunction.  The  prescribed  prayers 
included  petitions  for  the  Founder,  or  for  the  repose 
of  his  soul ;  every  Fellow  of  Trinity  Hall  was  to  say, 
immediately  upon  rising  in  the  morning  and  before 
going  to  bed  at  night,  the  prayer  "  Rege  quaesumus 
Domine,''  during  the  Bishop's  lifetime,  and  after 


COLLEGE  DISCIPLINE  71 

his  death,  "  Deus  qui  inter  Apostolicos  Sacerdotes/' 
and  to  say  the  psalm  "  De  profundis  clamavi ''  and 
a  "  Kurie  eleeson  '"  for  the  repose  of  the  soul  of  the 
Founder's  father  and  mother,  his  predecessors  in 
the  see  of  Norwich,  and  after  his  death  for  his  own 
soul.  The  ten  priests  who  served  the  Chapel  at 
New  College,  said  masses  for  the  Founder  and  his 
benefactors,  but  every  FeUow  was  to  attend  mass 
every  day  and  to  say  prayers  in  his  own  room, 
morning  and  evening,  including  "  Rege,  quaesumus, 
Domine,  Willielmum  Pontificem  Fundatorem 
nostrum "  or,  after  his  death,  "  Deus  qui  inter 
Apostolicos  sacredotes  famulum  tuum  Fundatorem 
nostrum  pontificali  dignitate ''  ;  and  every  day, 
both  after  High  Mass  in  Chapel,  and  after  dinner 
and  supper  in  Hall,  the  psalm  "  De  profundis  "  was 
said.  Penalties  were  prescribed  for  negligence,  and 
as  time  went  on,  a  whipping  was  inflicted  for  absence 
from  Chapel,  e.g.  at  Christ's  College,  and  at  Balliol, 
for  which  new  statutes  were  drawn  up  in  1507. 

Residence  in  College  was  continuous  throughout 
the  year,  even  during  the  University  vacation, 
which  lasted  from  early  in  July  to  the  beginning  of 
October.  Leave  of  absence  might  be  granted  at 
any  time  in  the  year,  on  reasonable  grounds,  but  was 
to  be  given  generally  in  vacations.  General  rules 
were  laid  down  for  behaviour  in  keeping  with  the 
clerical  profession  during  absence,  and  students  on 


72    LIFE  IN  THE  MEDIEVAL  UNIVERSITY 

leave  were  forbidden  to  frequent  taverns  or  other- 
wise transgress  the  rules  which  were  binding  upon 
them  in  the  University.  Occasionally  we  find 
some  relaxation  in  these  strict  regulations,  as  when 
the  Founder  of  Corpus  Christi  at  Oxford  allows 
"  moderate  hunting  or  hawking  "  when  one  of  his 
scholars  is  on  holiday  away  from  Oxford.  The 
same  indulgent  Founder,  after  the  usual  prohibition 
of  games  in  College,  allows  a  game  of  ball  in  the 
garden  for  the  sake  of  healthy  exercise.  ("  Non 
prohibemus  tamen  lusum  pilae  ad  murum,  tabulata, 
aut  tegulas,  in  horto,  causa  solum  modo  exercendi 
corporis  et  sanitatis.'')  Associations  with  home 
life  were  maintained  by  vacation  visits,  but  the 
influx  of  "  people  ''  to  the  University  was,  of  course, 
unknown.  The  ancient  statutes  of  Peterhouse 
permit  a  woman  (even  if  she  be  not  a  relation)  to 
talk  with  a  Fellow  in  the  Hall,  preferably  in  the 
presence  of  another  Fellow,  or  at  least,  a  servant ; 
but  the  legislator  had  grave  fears  of  the  results 
of  such  "  confabulationes,''  and  the  precedent  he 
set  was  not  followed.  A  Fellow  or  scholar  is  fre- 
quently permitted  by  College  statutes  to  entertain 
bis  father,  brother,  nephew,  or  a  friend,  obtaining 
first  the  consent  of  the  Head  of  the  College,  and 
paying  privately  for  the  entertainment,  but  no 
such  guest  might  sleep  in  College,  and  the  permission 
is  carefully   restricted  to   the   male  sex.     Women 


COLLEGE  DISCIPLINE  73 

were,  as  a  rule,  not  allowed  within  a  College  gate  ; 
if  it  w^as  impossible  to  find  a  man  to  wash  clothes,  a 
laundress  might  be  employed,  but  she  must  be  old 
and  of  unprepossessing  appearance.  A  scholar  or 
Fellow  of  a  college  had  not,  however,  committed 
himself  irrevocably  to  a  celibate  life,  for  marriage  is 
included  among  the  "  causas  rationabiles  et  honestas '" 
which  vacated  a  fellowship.  It  was  possible,  though 
probably  infrequent,  for  a  FeUow  who  had  not  pro- 
ceeded to  Holy  Orders  to  leave  the  College  "  uxore 
ducta,""  giving  up  his  emolument,  his  clerical  dress, 
and  the  tonsure.  Even  if  a  Fellow  enjoyed  the 
Founder's  provision  for  the  long  period  of  his 
course  in  Arts  and  Theology,  and  proceeded  in  due 
time  to  Holy  Orders,  it  was  not  contemplated  that 
he  should  remain  a  Fellow  tiU  his  death. 

"...  he  had  geten  him  yet  no  benefyce, 
Ne  was  so  worldly  for  to  have  offyce," 

says  Chaucer,  indicating  the  natural  end  of  a  scholar's 
career.  He  might  betake  himself  to  some  "  ob- 
sequium,"  and  rise  high  in  the  service  of  the  king, 
or  of  some  great  baron  or  bishop,  and  become,  like 
one  of  Wykeham's  first  New  College  scholars,  Henry 
Chichele,  an  archbishop  and  a  College  founder 
himself.  Should  no  such  great  career  open  up  for 
him,  he  can,  at  the  least,  succeed  to  one  of  the 
livings  which  the  founders  of  English  colleges 
purchased    for   this    purpose.      His    "  obsequium  '' 


74    LIFE  IN  THE  MEDIEVAL  UNIVERSITY 

would  naturally  lead  to  his  ceasing  to  reside,  and 
so  vacate  his  fellowship,  and  his  acceptance  of  a 
benefice  over  a  certain  value  brought  about  the 
same  result.  Some  such  event  was  expected  to 
happen  to  every  Fellow  ;  unless  he  happened  to  be 
elected  to  the  Headship,  it  wa^  not  intended  that 
he  should  grow  old  in  the  College,  and  at  Queen's 
College,  Oxford,  the  arbitrary  or  unreasonable  refusal 
of  a  benefice  vacated  a  Fellowship.  The  object  of 
the  College  Founder  was,  that  there  should  never 
be  wanting  a  succession  of  men  qualified  to  serve 
God  in  Church  and  State,  and  to  Chaucer's  unworldly 
clerk,  if  he  was  a  member  of  a  College,  there  would 
come,  in  due  course,  the  country  living  and  good- 
bye to  the  University.  But  statutes  were  not  always 
strictly  observed  and  the  idle  life-Fellow,  who  sur- 
vived to  be  the  scandal  of  early  Victorian  days,  was 
not  unknown  in  the  end  of  the  Middle  Ages. 

One  of  the  causes  of  vacating  a  fellowship  throws 
some  light  upon  the  class  of  men  who  became 
members  of  Oxford  and  Cambridge  Colleges.  The 
opening  sentences  of  founders'  statutes  usually 
contain  some  such  phrase  as  "  collegium  pauperum 
et  indigentium  scholarium  "  ;  but  later  sections  of 
the  statutes  contemplate  the  possibility  of  their 
succeeding  to  property — "  patrimonium,  haeredi- 
tatem,  feudumve  saeculare,  vel  pensionem  annuam  " 
— and  if  such  property  exceeded  the  annual  value  of 


COLLEGE  DISCIPLINE  75 

hundred  shillings,  a  Fellowship  was  ipso  facto 
vacated.  The  "  pauperes  et  indigentes  ''  expressions 
must  not  be  construed  too  literally  ;  the  Founder 
was  establishing  a  claim  to  the  merits  of  him  that 
considereth  the  poor,  and  the  language  he  used 
was  part  of  the  ordinary  formulas  of  the  time, 
and  ought  not  to  be  interpreted  more  strictly  than 
the  ordinary  phrases  of  legal  and  Diplomatic  docu- 
ments or  than  the  conventional  terms  of  courtesy, 
which  begin  and  conclude  a  modern  letter.  That 
an  English  College  Founder  wished  to  give  help 
where  help  was  required,  is  undeniable,  but  help  was 
required  by  others  than  the  poorest.  The  advance- 
ment of  the  study  of  theology  was  near  the  heart 
of  every  medieval  founder,  and  the  study  of  theology 
demanded  the  surrender  of  the  best  years  of  a 
man's  life,  and  the  extension  of  the  period  of  educa- 
tion long  after  he  might  be  expected  to  be  earning 
his  own  living.  A  curriculum  in  the  Uhiversity 
which  covered  at  least  sixteen  years,  and  might  be 
followed  by  nothing  more  remunerative  than  the 
cure  of  Chaucer's  poor  priest,  required  some  sub- 
stantial inducement  if  it  was  to  attract  the  best 
men.  Canon  Law,  Civil  Law  and  Medicine,  if  they 
offered  more  opportunity  of  attaining  a  competency, 
required  also  a  very  long  period  of  apprenticeship 
in  the  University,  There  were  many  youths  in  the 
Middle  Ages  (as  there  are  to-day)  neither  "  pauperes  " 


76    LIFE  IN  THE  MEDIEVAL  UNIVERSITY 

nor  "  indigentes  *'  in  the  strict  sense  of  the  word, 
but  too  poor  to  be  able  to  afford  sixteen  years  of 
study  in  the  University.  The  length  of  the  medieval 
curriculum  produced  some  of  the  necessities  which 
colleges  were  established  to  meet. 

That  the  founders  were  not  thinking  of  the 
poorest  classes  of  the  community,  is  evident  from 
many  provisions  of  their  statutes.  They  frequently 
provided  only  board  and  lodging,  and  left  their 
beneficiaries  to  find  elsewhere  the  other  necessities 
of  life  ;  they  appointed  penalties  (such  as  the  sub- 
traction of  commons  for  a  month)  which  would  have 
meant  starvation  to  the  penniless  ;  they  contem- 
plated entertainments  and  journeys,  and  in  the  case 
of  a  New  College  Doctor,  even  the  maintenance  of  a 
private  servant,  at  the  personal  expense  of  their 
scholars  and  Fellows ;  they  prohibited  the  ex- 
penditure of  money  on  extravagant  dress  and 
amusements.  William  of  Wykeham  made  allow- 
ances for  the  expense  of  proceeding  to  degrees 
in  the  University  when  one  of  his  Fellows  had 
no  private  means  and  no  friends  to  assist  him 
("  propter  paupertatem,  inopiam,  et  penuriam, 
carentiamque  amicorum  ")  ;  but  the  sum  to  be 
thus  administered  was  strictly  limited  and  the 
recipient  had  to  prove  his  poverty,  and  to  swear  to 
the  truth  of  his  statement.  The  very  frequent 
insistence    upon   provisions   for   a   Founder's    kin, 


COLLEGE  DISCIPLINE  77 

suggests  that  the  society,  to  which  he  wished  a 
large  number  of  his  relations  to  belong,  was  of  higher 
social  standing  than  an  almshouse  ;  and  the  liberal 
allowances  for  the  food  of  the  Fellows,  as  contrasted 
with  the  sums  allotted  to  servants  and  choristers, 
show  that  life  in  College  was  intended  to  be  easy 
and  comfortable.  The  fact  that  menial  work  was 
to  be  done  by  servants  and  that  Fellows  were  to  be 
waited  on  at  table  by  the  "  poor  boys  ''  is  a  further 
indication  of  the  dignity  of  the  Society.  At  New 
College,  it  was  the  special  duty  of  one  servant  to 
carry  to  the  schools,  the  books  of  the  Fellows  and 
scholars.  The  possession  of  considerable  means 
by  a  medieval  Fellow,  is  illustrated  by  two  wills, 
printed  in  "  Munimenta  Academica."  Henry 
Scayfe,  Fellow  of  Queen's  College,  left  in  1449, 
seven  pounds  to  his  father,  smaller  sums  to  a  large 
number  of  friends,  including  sixpence  to  every 
scholar  of  the  College,  and  also  disposed  by  will  of 
sheep,  cattle  and  horses.  In  1457,  John  Seggefjdd, 
Fellow  of  Lincoln  College,  bequeathed  to  his  brother 
tenements  in  Kingston  by  Hull,  which  had  been 
left  him  by  his  father,  twelve  pence  to  each  of  his 
colleagues,  and  thirteen  shilHngs  and  four  pence 
to  his  executor.  Whether  the  possessions  of  these 
men  ought  to  have  led  to  the  resignation  of  their 
Fellowships,  is  a  question  which  may  have  interested 
their  colleagues  at  the  time  ;    to  us  the   facts  are 


78    LIFE  IN  THE  MEDIEVAL  UNIVERSITY 

important,  as  illustrating  the  private  means  of 
members  of  a  society  of  "  poor  and  indigent '' 
scholars,  and  as  indicating  the  class  from  which 
such  scholars  were  drawn. 

College  regulations  in  other  countries  add  con- 
siderably to  our  knowledge  of  medieval  student-life. 
In  Paris,  where  the  system  had  its  humble  beginning 
in  the  hire  of  a  room  for  eighteen  poor  scholars, 
by  a  benevolent  Englishman  returning  from  a  pil- 
grimage to  Palestine  in  1180,  the  college  ideal 
progressed  slowly  and  never  reached  its  highest 
development.  Even  when  most  of  the  students 
of  Paris  came  to  live  in  colleges,  the  college  was 
not  the  real  unit  of  university  life,  nor  was  a  Parisian 
college  a  self-governing  community  like  Merton 
or  Peterhouse.  The  division  of  the  University  of 
Paris  into  Nations  affected  its  social  life,  and  the 
Faculties  were  separated  at  Paris  in  a  manner 
unknown  in  England.  A  college  at  Paris  was 
organised  in  accordance  with  Faculty  divisions,  an 
arrangement  so  little  in  harmony  with  the  ideas 
of  English  founders,  that  WilHam  of  Wykeham 
provided  that  Canonists  and  Civihsts,  should  be 
mixed  in  chambers  with  students  of  other  Faculties 
"  ad  nutriendam  et  conservandam  majorem  dilec- 
tionem,  amicitiam  et  charitatem  inter  eosdem." 
As  colleges  at  Paris  were  frequently  confined  to 
natives  of  a  particular  district,  they  tended  to  be- 


COLLEGE  DISCIPLINE  79 

come  sub-divisions  of  the  Nations.  The  disadvan- 
tages of  restricting  membership  of  a  college  to  a 
diocese  or  locaUty,  were  seen  and  avoided  by  the 
founder  of  the  College  of  Sorbonne,  in  the  middle  of 
the  thirteenth  century,  and  the  founder  of  the 
sixteenth  century  College  of  Mans  protested  against 
the  custom,  by  instructing  his  executors  to  open 
his  foundation  to  men,  from  every  nation  and 
province,  insisting  that  association  with  companions 
of  different  languages  and  customs,  would  make  the 
scholars  "  civiliores,  eloquentiores,  et  doctiores," 
and  that  the  friendships  thus  formed  would  enable 
them  to  render  better  service  to  the  State.  The 
tenure  of  his  bursa  or  emolument,  by  a  member  of  a 
Paris  college,  was  so  precarious  that  he  could  not 
count  upon  proceeding  to  a  higher  Faculty  in  his 
own  college,  and  the  existence  of  an  outside  body 
of  governors  and  of  Patrons  or  Visitors,  who  had  the 
power  of  filling  up  vacancies  further  checked  the 
growth  of  corporate  feeling  and  college  patriotism. 
The  large  powers  entrusted  to  an  external  authority 
made  the  position  of  the  Head  of  a  college  at  Paris, 
much  less  important  than  at  Oxford  or  Cambridge. 
The  differences  between  English  and  Parisian 
colleges  may  best  be  realised  by  a  reference  to  the 
statutes  of  some  early  Paris  founders.  About  1268, 
Guillaume  de  Saone,  Treasurer  of  Rouen,  founded 
at  Paris  the^"  Treasurer's  College  "  for  natives  of  his 


80    LIFE  IN  THE  MEDIEVAL  UNIVERSITY 

own  diocese.  It  was  founded  for  poor  clerks, 
twelve  of  whom  were  to  be  scholars  in  Theology, 
and  twelve  in  Arts.  They  were  to  be  selected  by 
the  archdeacons  of  the  Cathedral  of  Rouen,  who 
then  resided  at  Grand-Caux  and  Petit-Caux,  from 
natives  of  these  places,  or,  failing  them,  from  the 
Diocese  of  Rouen.  The  scholars  were  to  have 
rooms  and  a  weekly  allowance,  not  for  the  whole 
year,  but  for  forty-five  weeks  from  the  feast  of  St 
Dionysius  ;  no  provision  was  made  for  the  seven 
weeks  of  the  vacation,  except  for  two  theologians, 
who  were  to  take  charge  of  the  house  at  Paris. 
The  revenues  were  collected  and  distributed  by  the 
Prior  of  the  Hospital  of  St  Mary  Magdalen  at  Rouen, 
and  the  Archbishop  of  Rouen  was  Rector  and  Patron. 
The  students  in  Arts  never  formed  part  of  the 
foundation,  for  the  Treasurer  almost  immediately 
restricted  his  community  to  Theologians,  and  their 
tenure  of  the  endowment  was  strictly  limited  to 
two  years  after  obtaining  their  licence.  "  For  we 
do  not  wish  to  grant  them  anything  more,  because 
our  intention  is  only  to  induce  them  to  proceed  to  the 
degree  of  master  in  theology.''  They  were  furnished 
with  books,  which  they  were  forbidden  to  lend, 
and  they  were  placed  under  the  immediate  super- 
intendence of  the  senior  Bursar  or  Foundationer, 
whose  duty  it  was  to  call  them  together  once  a  week, 
and  inquire  into  their  conduct  and  their  progress  in 


COLLEGE  DISCIPLINE  81 

their  studies.     Some  general  rules  were  laid  down 
by  the  Founder,  and  offenders  against  them  were 
to    be    expelled    at    these    meetings.     They    were 
permitted   to   receive   a   peaceful   commoner,   who 
paid  for  his  chamber  and  was  a  student  of  Theology. 
The  interest  of  the  Treasurer  of  Rouen  in  Theology 
is  characteristic,  and  the  great  College  of  the  Sor- 
bonne,  founded  about  the  same  time,  was  also  re- 
stricted  to   theologians.     The   College   of   Navarre, 
founded  in  1304,  provided  for  twenty  students  of 
grammar,   twenty   in   logic    and   philosophy   (Arts) 
and  twenty  in  Theology,  each  Faculty  forming  a 
sub-college,    with    a    separate    hall.      A    doctor   in 
grammar  was  to  superintend  both  the  studies  and 
the  morals  of  the  grammarians  and  to  receive  double 
their  weekly  allowance  of  four  shillings,  and  similarly, 
a  master  of  Arts  was  to  supervise  the  Artists  and 
receive  double  their  weekly  allowance  of  six  shillings. 
The  "  Dean  and  University  of  the  masters  of  the 
scholars  of  the  theological  Faculty  at  Paris  "  were 
to  choose  a  secular  clerk  to  be  Rector  of  the  College, 
and  to  govern  it  in  conjunction  with  the  body  that 
appointed   him.     The   masters   of   the   Faculty    of 
Theology,    or   their   representatives,   were    to   visit 
the  College  annually,  to  inquire  into  the  financial 
and  domestic  arrangements,  and  into  the  behaviour 
of  the  Rector,  masters,  and  scholars,  and  to  punish 
:  as    they    deemed    necessary.     Membership    of   the 


82    LIFE  IN  THE  MEDIEVAL  UNIVERSITY 

College  was  restricted  to  the  kingdom  of  France. 
Similarly,  the  College  du  Plessis,  founded  in  1322, 
by  Geoffrey  du  Plessis,  Notary  Apostolic,  and 
Secretarj^  of  Philip  the  Long,  was  restricted  to 
Frenchmen,  with  preference  to  certain  northern 
dioceses.  Its  forty  scholars  were  in  separate  societies, 
with  a  Grand  Master  who  had  to  be  a  master  or,  at 
least,  a  bachelor  in  Theology.  The  affairs  of  the 
College,  as  far  as  concerned  the  election,  discipline 
and  the  deprivation  of  its  members,  were  to  be  ad- 
ministered by  two  bishops  and  an  abbot,  in  con- 
junction with  the  Master  and  with  the  Chancellor 
of  the  Cathedral  of  Paris,  or,  in  the  absence  of  the 
great  dignitaries,  by  the  Master  and  the  Chancellor. 
But  the  financial  administration  was  entrusted  to  a 
provisor  or  procurator,  who  undertook  the  collection 
a^d  distribution  of  the  revenues. 
\jf  The  details  of  college  statutes  at  Paris,  bear  a 
general  resemblance  to  the  regulations  of  Oxford 
and  Cambridge  founders,  and  discipline  became  more 
stringent  as  time  went  on.  Attendance  at  Chapel 
(the  only  meeting-place  of  students  in  different 
Faculties  in  the  same  College)  came  to  be  strictly 
required.  Punctuality  at  meals  was  frequently 
insisted  upon,  under  pain  of  receiving  nothing  but 
bread.  Silence  was  enjoined  at  meal  times  and  the 
Bible  was  read.  Latin  was,  from  the  first,  the  only 
lawful  medium  of  conversation.     All  the  members 


COLLEGE  DISCIPLINE  83 

of  a  college,  had  to  be  within  the  gates  when  the 
curfew  bell  rang.  Bearing  arms  or  wearing  unusual 
clothes  was  forbidden,  and  singing,  shouting  and 
games  were  denounced  as  interfering  with  the 
studies  of  others,  although  the  Parisian  legislators 
were  more  sympathetic  with  regard  to  games, 
than  their  EngHsh  contemporaries.  Even  the 
Founder  of  the  Cistercian  College  of  St  Bernard, 
contemplated  that  permission  might  be  obtained  for 
games,  though  not  before  dinner  or  after  the  bell 
rang  for  vespers.  A  sixteenth-century  code  of 
statutes  for  the  College  of  Tours,  while  recording  the 
complaints  of  the  neighbours  about  the  noise  made 
by  the  scholars  playing  ball  ("  de  insolentiis,  ex- 
clamationibus  et  ludis  palmariis  dictorum  scolarium, 
qui  ludunt  .  .  .  piUs  durissimis  '')  permitted  the 
game  under  less  noisy  conditions  ("  pilis  seu  scophis 
moUibus  et  manu,  ac  cum  silentio  et  absque  clamor- 
ibus  tumultuosis  '').  The  use  of  dice  was,  as  a  rule, 
absolutely  prohibited,  but  the  statutes  of  the 
College  of  Cornouaille  permitted  it  under  certain 
conditions.  It  might  be  played  to  amuse  a  sick 
fellow  on  feast  days,  or  without  the  plea  of  sickness, 
on  the  vigils  of  Christmas,  and  of  three  Holy  Days. 
But  the  stakes  must  be  small  and  paid  in  kind,  not 
in  money  ("  pro  aliquo  comestibili  vel  potabili ''). 

Penalties  for  minor  offences  were  much  the  same 
as  in  England — forfeiture  of  commons  for  varying 


84    LIFE  IN  THE  MEDIEVAL  UNIVERSITY 

periods,  pecuniary  fines,  and  in  the  sixteenth 
century,  whipping.  In  the  College  of  Le  Mans, 
bursars  who  were  not  graduates  were  to  be  whipped 
for  a  first  offence  in  a  school,  and  for  a  second 
offence  in  the  Hall  ("  prout  mos  est  in  universit- 
ate  Parisiensi '').  The  obligation  of  reporting  each 
other's  faults,  of  which  there  are  indications  in 
English  statutes,  was  almost  universal  at  Paris,  where 
all  were  bound  to  reveal  offences  "  sub  secreto  '' 
to  the  authorities.  The  penalty  of  "  sconcing,'' 
still  inflicted  at  Oxford,  for  offences  against  under- 
graduate etiquette,  finds  a  place  in  the  Parisian 
statutes  among  serious  punishments.  We  find  it 
in  the  Statutes  of  Cornouaille  for  minor  offences ; 
if  a  man  carries  wine  out  of  the  College  illicitly,  he 
is  to  pay  for  double  the  quantity,  to  be  drunk  by 
the  members  who  were  present  at  the  time  ;  if 
anyone  walks  through  the  confines  or  chambers  in 
pattens  ("  cum  calepodiis,  id  est  cum  patinis  ")  he  is 
to  be  mulcted  in  a  pint  of  wine.  If  a  stranger  is 
introduced  without  leave  ("  ad  mensam  communitatis 
ad  comedendum  vel  videndum  secretum  mensae  "), 
the  penalty  is  a  quart  of  good  wine  for  the  fellows 
present  in  Hall.  For  unseemly  noise,  especially  at 
meals,  and  at  time  of  prayers,  the  ordinary  penalty 
is  a  quart  of  ordinary  wine  ("  vini  mediocris  ").  For 
speaking  in  the  vernacular,  there  is  a  fine  of  'yptie 
price  of  a  pint  of  wine,"  but,  as  the  usual  direction 


COLLEGE  DISCIPLINE  85 

about  drinking  it,  is  omitted,  this  was  probably  not 
a  sconce  ;  at  the  Cistercian  CoUege,  the  penalty  for 
this  offence  was  a  sconce.  So  far,  the  offences  for 
which  a  sconce  is  prescribed,  might  in  most  cases, 
be  paralleled  in  m^ore  recent  times  in  an  English 
coUege,  but  the  statutes  of  Cornouaille  also  make 
sconcing  the  penalty  for  striking  a  servant,  unless 
the  injury  was  severe,  in  Avhich  case,  more  serious 
punishments  were  imposed.  The  whole  sentence 
js^nJllustration  of  the  lack  of  control  over  outbursts 
of  bad  temper,  which  is  characteristic  of  medieval 
life!  Sirxlie  scfiolaT^-are  to  be  careful  not  to  strike 
the  servants  in  anger  or  with  ill-will,  or  to  injure  them ; 
he  who  inflicts  a  sHght  injury  is  to  be  fined  a  quart 
of  wine  ;  if  the  injury  be  more  severe,  the  master 
is  to  deprive  him  of  his  burse  for  one  day  or  more, 
at  his  own  discretion  and  that  of  a  majority  of  the 
scholars  :  if  there  is  a  large  effusion  of  blood  or  a 
serious  injury,  the  pro  visor  (the  Bishop  of  Paris  or 
his  Vicar  General)  is  to  be  informed,  and  to  deprive 
the  offender  of  his  burse,  or  even  punish  him  other- 
wise. At  the  Sorbonne,  an  assault  on  a  servant  was 
to  be  followed  by  the  drinking  of  a  quart  of  speci- 
ally good  wine  by  the  FeUows,  at  the  culprit's 
expense  ;  for  talking  too  loud  in  Hall,  the  sconce 
was  two  quarts  (presumably  of  ordinary  wine). 
Dr  Rashdall  quotes  from  the  MS.  Register  of  the 
Sorbonne,    actual    instances    of    the    infliction    of 


86    LIFE  IN  THE  MEDIEVAL  UNIVERSITY 

sconces  :  "A  Doctor  of  Divinity  is  sconced  a  quart 
of  wine  for  picking  a  pear  off  a  tree  in  the  College 
garden,  or  again,  for  forgetting  to  shut  the  Chapel 
door,  or  for  taking  his  meals  in  the  kitchen.  Clerks 
are  sconced  a  pint  for  '  very  inordinately  '  knock- 
ing '  at  the  door  during  dinner  .  .  /  for  '  con- 
fabulating '  in  the  court  late  at  night,  and  refusing 
to  go  to  their  chambers  when  ordered.  .  .  .  The 
head  cook  is  sconced  for  '  badly  preparing  the 
meat  for  supper,'  or  for  not  putting  salt  in  the 
soup."  Among  the  examples  given  by  Dr  Rashdall 
from  this  source  are  a  sconce  of  two  shilUngs  for 
drunkenness  and  a  sconce  in  wine  inflicted  upon  the 
head  cook  for  being  found  "  cum  una  meretrice." 
An  offence  so  serious  in  a  bursar,  is  by  many  college 
statutes  to  be  followed  by  expulsion,  and  Dr  Rashdall 
quotes  an  instance  of  this  penalty  :  but  Parisian 
College  Founders,  were  less  severe  in  dealing  with 
moral  offences  than  English  Founders.  At  the 
monastic  College  of  Marmoutier,  it  was  only  on  the 
second  offence  that  bringing  into  College  ("  mulierem 
suspectam  et  inhonestam '')  led  to  expulsion,  and  at 
the  College  of  Cornouaille,  the  penalty  for  a  first 
offence  was  loss  of  commons  or  bursa  for  fifteen 
days,  and  for  a  second  offence  a  month's  deprivation  ; 
but  even  at  Cornouaille  actual  incontinence  was  to 
be  punished  by  expulsion. 

A  late  code  of  statutes  of  the  fourteenth-century 


COLLEGE  DISCIPLINE  87 

College  of  Dainville,  give  us  a  picture  of  a  student's 
day.  The  hour  of  rising  was  five  o'clock,  except  \ 
on  Sundays  and  Feast  days  when  an  hour's  grace  was  ( 
allowed.  Chapel  service  began  at  5.30,  prayers, 
meditation,  and  a  New  Testament  lesson  being 
followed  by  the  mass  of  the  College  at  six.  All 
students  resident  in  the  College  had  to  be  present. 
The  reception  of  commoners,  an  early  instance  of 
which  we  noted  in  the  College  of  the  Treasurer, 
had  developed  to  such  an  extent,  that  all  Colleges 
had,  in  addition  to  their  bursars  or  foundations,  a 
large  number  of  "  foranei  scholares,"  who  paid 
their  own  expenses  but  were  subject  to  College 
discipline,  and  received  a  large  part  of  their  educa- 
tion in  College.  After  mass,  the  day's  work  began  ; 
attendance  at  the  Schools  and  the  performance  of 
exercises  for  thei'^  master  in  College.  i3inner  was 
about  twelve  o'clopk.  when  either  a  bursar  or  an 
external  student  read,  "  first  Holy  Scripture,  then  a 
book  appointed  by  the  master,  then  a  passage  from 
a  martyrology."  After  dinner,  an  hour  was  allowed^ 
for  Recreation-— walking  v/ithin  the  precincts  of  the 
College,  or  conversation — and  then  everyone  went  to 
his  own  chamber.  Supper  was  at  seven,  with  reading 
as  at  dinner,  and  the  interval  until  8..^0  wa-s  agavn 
free  for  ''  deambulatio  vel  ^lollQCiitia"  At  8.30  the 
gates  of  the  College  were  closed,  and  e^re^}^r)^  Chapel 
began.     Rules  against  remaining  in  Hall  after  supper 


88    LIFE  IN  THE  MEDIEVAL  UNIVERSITY 

occur  in  Parisian  as  well  as  in  English  statutes,  and 
we  find  prohibitions  against  carrying  off  wood  to 
private  rooms.  The  general  arrangement  of  Parisian 
college  chambers,  probably  resembled  those  of 
Oxford,  or  Cambridge,  and  we  find  references  to 
"  studies/'  The  statutes  of  the  monastic  college  of 
Clugny  order  that  "*because  the  mind  is  rendered 
prudent  by  sitting  down  and  keeping  quiet,  the  said 
students  at  the  proper  and  wonted  hours  for  study 
shall  be,  and  sit,  alone  in  their  cells  and  at  their 
studies/'  Parisian  statutes  are  stricter  than  English 
statutes  in  insisting  upon  frequent  inspections  of 
students'  chambers,  and  a  sixteenth-century  code 
for  a  Parisian  college  orders  the  officials  to  see  their 
pupils  every  night  before  bed  time,  and  to  make 
sure,  before  they  themselves  retire  for  the  night, 

jthat   the   students   are   asleep   and  not   wandering 

\ about  the  quadrangles. 

^  Strict  supervision  is  found  in  colleges  in  other 
French  universities,  even  in  those  which  belong  to 
the  student  type.  It  was,  of  course,  especially 
strict  in  monastic  colleges,  which  carried  their  own 
customs  to  the  University  ;  in  the  College  of  Notre 
Dame  de  Pitie,  at  Avignon,  the  master  of  the  novices 
Hved  in  a  room  adjoining  their  dormitory,  and  had 
a  window,  through  which  he  might  watch  their 
proceedings.  Supervision  was  sometimes  connected 
with  precautions  against  fire,  e.g.  at  the  College  of 


COLLEGE  DISCIPLINE  89 

Saint  Ruf,  at  Montpellier,  an  officer  was  appointed 
every  week  to  go  round  all  chambers  and  rooms 
at  night,  and  to  warn  anyone  who  had  a  candle  or 
a  fire  in  a  dangerous  position,  near  his  bed  or  his 
study.  He  was  to  carry  a  pail  of  water  with  him 
to  be  ready  for  emergencies.  A  somewhat  similar 
precaution  was  taken  in  the  Collegium  Mains  at 
Leipsic,  where  water  was  kept  in  pails  beside  the 
dormitories,  and  leather  pails,  some  centuries  old^ 
are  still  to  be  seen  at  Oxford.  As  a  rule,  the  dormi- 
tories seem  to  have  contained  a  separate  bed  for  each 
occupant,  but  in  the  College  of  St  Nicholas  de  Pelegry 
at  Cahors,  students  in  arts  (who  entered  about  the 
age  of  fourteen)  were  to  sleep  two  in  a  bed.  Insist- 1 
ence  on  the  use  of  Latin  is  almost  universal ;  the 
scholars  of  the  College  de  Foix  at  Toulouse  are  I 
warned  that  only  ploughmen,  swineherds  and  other  / 
rustics,  use  their  mother  tongues.  Silence  and  the 
reading  of  the  Bible  at  meals  was  usual,  and  students 
are  sometimes  told  to  make  their  needs  known, 
if  possible,  by  signs.  Fines  for  lateness  at  meals 
are  common,  and  there  are  injunctions  against 
rushing  into  Hall  with  violence  and  greed  :  no  one 
is  to  go  near  the  kitchen  to  seize  any  food,  and 
those  who  enter  Hall  first,  are  to  wait  till  the  rest 
arrive,  and  all  are  to  sit  down  in  the  proper  order. 
Prohibitions  against  dogs  are  infrequent  in  the  French  ^ 
statutes  ;    at  the  College  des  Douze  Medecins  at 


90    LIFE  IN  THE  MEDIEVAL  UNIVERSITY 

Montpellier,  one  watchdog  was  allowed  to  live  in 
College.  Women  were  often  forbidden  to  enter  a 
college,  "  quia  mulier  caput  est  peccati,  arma  dyaboli, 
expulsio  paradysi,  et  corruptio  legis  antiquae/' 
The  College  of  Saint  Ruf  at  Montpellier,  in  the 
statutes  of  which  this  formula  occurs,  did,  however, 
allow  women  to  stand  in  the  Chapel  at  mass,  pro- 
vided that  they  did  not  enter  the  choir.  The 
monastic  institution  of  Our  Lady  of  Pity  at  Avignon, 
went  so  far  as  to  have  a  matron  for  the  young  boys, 
an  old  woman,  entitled  "  Mater  Novitiorum  Col- 
legiatorum.''  At  the  College  of  Breuil  at  Angers, 
a  woman  might  visit  the  College  by  day  if  the 
Principal  was  satisfied  that  no  scandal  could  arise. 
Penalties  for  going  about  the  town  in  masked 
bands  and  singing  or  dancing,  occur  in  many 
statutes,  but  processions  in  honour  of  saints  and 
choruses  to  celebrate  the  taking  of  degrees,  are 
sonfetimes  permitted.  Blasphemy  and  bad  language 
greatly  troubled  the  French  statute-makers,  and 
there  are  many  provisions  against  blaspheming  the 
Blessed  Virgin.  At  the  College  of  Breuil  at  Angers, 
a  fine  of  twopence,  was  imposed  for  speaking  or 
singing  "  verba  inhonesta  tam  alte,''  especially  in 
public  places  of  the  College  ;  in  Germany,  the  Col- 
legium Minus  at  Leipsic  provides  also  against 
writing  "  impudentia  dicta  ''  on  the  walls  of  the 
College.      The   usual   penalties   for   minor   offences 


COLLEGE  DISCIPLINE  91 

are  fines  and  subtraction  of  commons  :  references  to 
flogging  are  rare,  though  it  is  found  in  both  French 
and  German  colleges.  More  serious  crimes  were 
visited  with  suspension  and  expulsion.  At  the 
College  of  Pelegry,  at  Cahors,  to  enter  the  college  by 
a  window  or  otherwise  after  the  great  gate  was 
closed,  involved  rustication  for  two  months  for  the 
first  offence,  six  months  for  the  second  offence, 
and  expulsion  for  a  third.  At  the  College  de  Verdale, 
at  Toulouse,  expulsion  was  the  penalty  for  a  list  of 
crimes  which  includes  theft,  entering  the  college 
by  stealth,  breaking  into  the  cellar,  bringing  in  a 
meretrix,  witch-craft,  alchemy,  invoking  demons 
or  sacrificing  to  them,  forgery,  and  contracting 
"  carnale  vel  spirituale  matrimonium." 

We  may  close  our  survey  of  the  Medieval  College, 
with  a  glimpse  of  a  French  college  in  the  fourteenth 
century.  We  have  the  record  of  a  visitation  of  the 
Benedictine  foundation  of  St  Benedict,  at  Mont- 
pellier,  partly  a  monastery  and  partly  a  college.  The 
Prior  is  strictly  questioned  about  the  conduct  of  the 
students.  He  gives  a  good  character  to  most  of 
them  :  but  the  little  flock  contained  some  black 
sheep.  Peter  is  somewhat  light-headed  ("  aliquan- 
tulum  est  levis  capitis  '')  but  not  incorrigible  ;  he  has 
been  guilty  of  employing  "  verba  injuriosa  et  pro- 
vocativa,''  but  the  Prior  has  corrected  him,  and  he 
has    taken    the    correction    patiently.     Bertrand's 


92    LIFE  IN  THE  MEDIEVAL  UNIVERSITY 

life  is  "  aliquantulum  dissoluta/'  and  he  has  made 
a  conspiracy  to  beat  (and,  as  some  thifik,  to  kill) 
Dominus  Savaricus,  who  had  beaten  him  along 
with  the  rest,  when  he  did  not  know  his  lessons. 
(Bertrand  says  he  is  eighteen  and  looks  like  twenty- 
one,  but  this  is  a  monastic  college  and  the  beating 
is  monastic  discipline.)  The  Prior  further  reports 
that  Bertrand  is  quarrelsome  ;  he  has  had  to  make 
him  change  his  bed  and  his  chamber,  because  the 
others  could  not  stand  him  ;  he  is  idle  and  often 
says  openly,  that  he  would  rather  be  a  "  claus- 
tralis  ''  than  a  student.  Breso  is  simple  and  easily 
led,  and  was  one  of  Bertrand's  conspirators.  William 
is  "  pessimae  conversationis ''  and  incorrigible, 
scandalous  in  word  and  deed,  idle  and  given  to 
wandering  about  the  town.  Correction  is  vain  in 
his  case.  After  the  Prior  has  reported,  the  students 
are  examined  viva  voce  upon  the  portions  of  the 
decretals,  which  they  are  studying,  and  the  results 
of  the  examination  bear  out  generally  the  Prior's 
views.  Bertrand,  Breso  and  William,  are  found  to 
know  nothing,  and  to  have  wasted  their  time.  The 
others  acquit  themselves  well,  and  the  examiners 
are  merciful  to  a  boy  who  is  nervous  in  viva  voce, 
but  of  whose  studies  Dominus  Savaricus,  who  has 
recovered  from  the  attack  made  upon  him,  gives  a 
good  account.  Monks,  and  especially  novices,  were 
human,    and   the   experience   of   St   Benedict's   at 


COLLEGE  DISCIPLINE  93 

Montpellier  was  probably  similar  to  that  of  secular 
colleges  in  France  and  elsewhere.  Even  in  de- 
mocratic Bologna,  it  was  found  necessary  in  the 
Spanish  College  (from  the  MS.  statutes  of  which, 
Dr  Rashdall  quotes)  to  establish  a  discipHne  which 
included  a  penalty  of  five  days  in  the  stocks  and  a 
meal  of  bread  and  water,  eaten  sitting  on  the  floor 
of  the  Hall,  for  an  assault  upon  a  brother  student ; 
if  blood  was  shed,  the  penalty  was  double.  The 
statutes  of  the  Spanish  College  were  severe  for  the 
fourteenth  century,  and  they  penalise  absence  from 
lecture,  unpunctuality,  nocturnal  wanderings  and 
so  forth,  as  strictly  as  any  EngHsh  founder. 


CHAPTER  V 

UNIVERSITY    DISCIPLINE 

The  growing  tradition  of  strict  college  discipline 
ultimately  led  to  disciplinary  statutes  in  the  univer- 
sities. From  very  early  times,  universities  had,  of 
course,  made  regulations  about  the  curriculum,  and 
the  border-line  between  a  scholar's  studies  and  his 
manners  and  morals,  could  not  be  absolutely  fixed. 
At  Paris,  indeed,  it  is  not  until  the  fifteenth  century 
that  we  find  any  detailed  code  of  disciplinary 
statutes  ;  but  fourteenth-century  regulations  about 
dress  were  partly  aimed  at  checking  misdeeds  of 
students  disguised  as  laymen,  and  in  1391  the 
English  Nation  prohibited  an  undue  number  of 
"  potationes  et  convivia,''  in  celebration  of  the 
"jocund  advent''  of  a  freshman  or  on  other  occa- 
sions. It  was  not  till  the  middle  of  the  fifteenth 
century  that  the  University  of  Paris,  awoke  to  the 
realisation  of  its  own  shortcomings  in  manners  and 
morals ;  Cardinal  William  de  Estoutville  was 
commissioned  by  Nicholas  V.  to  reform  it,  and  in- 
ternal reform,  the  necessity  of  which  had  been 
recognised  for  some  years,  began  about  the  same 
time  with  an  edict  of  the  Faculty  of  Arts  ordering 

94 


UNIVERSITY  DISCIPLINE  95 

a  general  improvement,  and  especially  forbidding 
the  celebration  of  feasts  "  cum  mimis  sen  instru- 
mentis  altis/'  Estoutville's  ordinances  are  largely 
concerned  with  the  curriculum,  he  was  at  least  as 
anxious  to  reform  the  masters  as  the  pupils,  and  his 
exhortations  are  frequently  in  general  or  scriptural 
terms.  The  points  of  undergraduate  discipline  on 
which  he  lays  stress  are  feasting,  dressing  impro- 
perly or  wearing  the  clothes  of  laymen,  quarrelling, 
and  games  and  dances  "  dissolutas  et  inhonestas/' 
Four  masters  or  doctors  are  to  inspect  annually  the 
colleges  and  pedagogies,  in  which  the  students  Hve, 
and  are  to  see  that  proper  disciphne  is  maintained. 
From  time  to  time,  similar  regulations  were  made 
by  the  Faculty  of  Arts,  e.g.  in  1469,  it  is  ordered 
that  no  student  is  to  wear  the  habit  of  a  fool,  except 
for  a  farce  or  a  morality  (amusements  permitted  at 
this  period).  Any  one  carrying  arms  or  wearing 
fools'  dress  is  to  be  beaten  in  public  and  in  his  own 
hall.  These  last  regulations  are  doubtless  connected 
with  town  and  gown  riots,  for  which  the  Feast  of 
Fools  afforded  a  tempting  opportunity. 

The  absence  of  disciplinary  regulations  in  the 
records  of  the  University  of  Paris,  is  largely  to  be 
explained  by  the  fact  that  criminal  charges  against 
Parisian  scholars  were  tried  in  the  Bishop's  Court, 
and  civil  actions  in  the  Court  of  the  Provost  of 
Paris.     At    Oxford,    where    the   whole   jurisdiction 


96    LIFE  IN  THE  MEDIEVAL  UNIVERSITY 

belonged  to  the  Chancellor  of  the  University,  dis- 
ciplinary statutes  are  much  more  numerous.  We 
find,  from  the  middle  of  the  thirteenth  century  on- 
wards, a  series  of  edicts  against  scholars  who  break 
the  peace  or  carry  arms,  who  enter  citizens'  houses 
to  commit  violence,  who  practise  the  art  of  sword 
and  buckler,  or  who  are  guilty  of  gross  immorality. 
A  statute  of  1250  forbids  scholars  to  celebrate  their 
national  feast  days  disguised  with  masks  or  gar- 
lands, and  one  of  1313  restricts  the  carrying  of  arms 
to  students  who  are  entering  on,  or  returning  from, 
long  journeys.  Offenders  who  refuse  to  go  to 
prison,  or  who  escape  from  it,  are  to  be  expelled. 
As  early  as  the  middle  of  the  thirteenth  century, 
it  was  the  duty  of  the  proctors  and  of  the  principals 
of  halls,  to  investigate  into,  and  to  report  the  mis- 
deeds of  scholars  who  broke  the  rules  of  the  Univer- 
sity or  Uved  evil  lives.  A  list  of  fines  drawn  up  in 
1432  (a  period  when  in  the  opinion  of  the  University 
a  pecuniary  penalty  was  more  dreaded  than  anything 
else)  prescribes  fines  of  twelve  pence  for  threatening 
violence,  two  shillings  for  wearing  arms,  four  shillings 
for  a  violent  shove  with  the  shoulders  or  a  blow 
with  the  fist,  six  shillings  and  eight  pence  for  a  blow 
with  a  stone  or  stick,  ten  shillings  for  a  blow  with 
a  sword,  a  knife,  a  dagger  or  any  similar  "  bellicose 
weapon,''  twenty  shilHngs  for  carrying  bows  and 
arrows  with  evil  intent,  thirty  shillings  for  collecting 


UNIVERSITY  DISCIPLINE  97 

an  assembly  to  break  the  peace,  hinder  the  execution 
of  justice,  or  make  an  attack  upon  anyone,  and  forty 
shillings  for  resisting  the  execution  of  justice  or 
wandering  about  by  night.  In  every  case  damages 
have  also  to  be  paid  to  any  injured  person.  The 
device  of  overaweing  a  court  (familiar  in  Scottish 
history)  is  prohibited  by  a  regulation  that  no  one 
shall  appear  before  the  Chancellor  with  more  than 
two  companions. 

The  records  of  the  Chancellor's  Court  furnish  us 
with  instances  of  the  enforcement  of  these  regula- 
tions. In  1434,  a  scholar  is  found  wearing  a  dagger 
and  is  sentenced  to  be  "  inbocardatus,'' ^  i.e.  im- 
prisoned in  the  Tower  of  the  North  Gate  of  the  city, 
and  another  offender,  in  1442,  suffers  a  day's  im- 
prisonment, pays  his  fine  of  two  shilHngs,  and  for- 
feits his  arms.  In  the  same  year,  John  Hordene,  a 
scholar  of  Peckwater  Inn,  is  fined  six  shillings  and 
eightpence  for  breaking  the  head  of  Thomas  Walker, 
manciple  of  Pauline  HaU,  and  Thomas  Walker  is 
fined  the  Hke  sum  for  drawing  his  sword  on  Hordene 
and  for  gambling.  In  1433,  two  scholars,  guilty 
of  attacking  Master  Thomas  Rygby  in  Bagley  Wood 
and  steahng  twelve  shillings  and  sevenpence  from 
him,  fail  to  appear,  and  are  expelled  from  the 
University,  their  goods  (estimated  to  be  worth  about 

^  The  prison  was  called  "  Bocardo  "  because,  like  the  mood  known 
as  "  Bocardo  "  in  the  syllogism,  it  was  difficult  to  get  out  of. 

Q 


98    LIFE  IN  THE  MEDIEVAL  UNIVERSITY 

thirteen  shillings)  being  confiscated.  In  1457,  four 
scholars  are  caught  entering  with  weapons  into  a 
warren  or  park  to  hunt  deer  and  rabbits  ;  they 
are  released  on  taking  an  oath  that,  while  they  are 
students  of  the  University,  they  will  not  trespass 
again  in  closed  parks  or  warrens.  In  1452,  a 
scholar  of  Haburdaysh  Hall  is  imprisoned  for  using 
threatening  language  to  a  tailor,  and  is  fined  twelve- 
pence  and  imprisoned  ;  the  tailor  insults  the  prisoner 
and  is  fined  six  shillings  and  eightpence.  We 
have  quoted  instances  of  undergraduate  offences, 
but  the  evil-doers  are  by  no  means  invariably  young 
students,  e.g.  in  1457  the  Vicar  of  St  Giles  has  to 
take  an  oath  to  keep  the  peace,  his  club  is  forfeited, 
and  he  is  fined  two  shillings ;  and  in  the  same  year 
the  Master  of  St  John's  Hospital,  who  has  been 
convicted  of  divers  enormous  offences,  is  expelled 
the  University  for  breaking  prison. 

The  increased  stringency  of  disciplinary  regula- 
tions at  Oxford  in  the  end  of  the  medieval  period 
is  best  illustrated  by  the  statutes  which,  in  the 
fifteenth  century,  the  University  enforced  upon 
members  of  the  unendowed  Halls.  Students  who 
were  not  members  of  a  College  lived,  for  the  most 
part,  in  one  of  the  numerous  Halls  which,  up  to  the 
Reformation,  were  so  important  a  feature  of  the 
University.  A  code  of  these  statutes,  printed  for 
the  first  time  by  Dr  Rashdall,  shows  that  the  Hberty 


UNIVERSITY  DISCIPLINE  99 

of  the  earlier  medieval  undergraduate  had  largely 
disappeared,  and  that  the  life  of  a  resident  in  a^ 
Hall,  in  the  end  of  the  fifteenth  century,  was  almost 
as  much  governed  by  statute  and  regulation  as  if 
he  were  the  partaker  of  a  founder's  bounty.  He 
must  hear  mass  and  say  matins  and  vespers  every 
day,  under  pain  of  a  fine  of  a  penny,  and  attend 
certain  services  on  feast  days.  His  table  manners 
are  no  longer  regulated  by  the  customs  and  etiquette 
of  his  fellows,  but  by  the  rules  of  the  University. 
His  lapses  from  good  morals  are  no  longer  to  be 
visited  with  penalties  imposed  by  his  own  society  ; 
if  he  gambles  or  practises  with  sword  and  buckler, 
he  is  to  pay  fourpence  ;  if  he  sins  with  his  tongue, 
or  shouts  or  makes,  melody  when  others  wish  to 
study  or  sleep,  or  brings  to  table  an  unsheathed 
knife,  or  speaks  English,  or  goes  into  the.  town  or 
the  fields  unaccompanied  by  a  feUow-student,  he 
is  fined  a  farthing  ;  if  he  comes  in  after  8  p.m.  in 
winter  or  9  p.m.  in  summer,  he  contracts  a  gate  bill 
of  a  penny  ;  if  he  sleeps  out,  or  puts  up  a  friend  for 
the  night,  without  leave  of  his  Principal,  the  fine  is 
fourpence  ;  if  he  sleeps  with  another  student  in 
the  Hall  but  not  in  his  own  bed,  he  pays  a  penny ; 
if  he  brings  a  stranger  to  a  meal  or  a  lecture  or  any 
other  "  actum  communem  "  in  the  Hall,  he  is  fined 
twopence  ;  if  he  is  pugnacious  and  offensive  and 
makes  odious  comparisons,  he  is  to  pay  sixpence ; 


100  LIFE  IN  THE  MEDIEVAL  UNIVERSITY 

if  he  attacks  a  fellow-member  or  a  servant,  the 
University  has  appointed  penalties  varying  with  the 
severity  of  the  assault,  and  for  a  second  offence 
he  must  be  expelled.  He  has  to  obey  his  Principal 
much  as  members  of  a  College  obey  their  Head,  and, 
in  lieu  of  the  pecuniary  penalties,  the  Principal 
may  flog  him  publicly  on  Saturday  nights,  even 
though  his  own  master  may  certify  that  he  has 
already  corrected  him,  or  declare  his  willingness 
to  correct  him,  for  his  breaches  of  the  statutes. 
The  private  master  or  tutor  was,  as  Dr  Rashdall 
suggests,  probably  a  luxury  of  the  rich  boy,  to  whom 
his  wealth  might  thus  bring  its  own  penalty. 

It  is  startHng  to  the  modern  mind  to  find  Univer- 
sity statutes  and  discipHnary  regulations  forbidding 
not  only  extravagant  and  unbecoming  dress,  but 
sometimes  also  the  wearing  of  distinctive  academic 
costume  by  undergraduates,  for  distinctive  academic 
costume  was  the  privilege  of  a  graduate.  The 
scholar  wore  ordinary  clerical  dress,  unless  the 
Founder  of  a  College  prescribed  a  special  livery. 
The  master  had  a  cappa  or  cope,  such  as  a  Cambridge 
Vice-Chancellor  wears  on  Degree  Days,  with  a 
border  and  hood  of  minever,  such  as  Oxford  proctors 
still  wear,  and  a  hiretta  or  square  cap.  In  1489, 
the  insolence  of  many  Oxford  scholars  had  grown 
to  such  a  pitch  that  they  were  not  afraid  to  wear 
hoods  in  the  fashion  of  masters,  whereas  bachelors. 


UNIVERSITY  DISCIPLINE  101 

to  their  own  damnation  and  the  ruin  of  the  Univer- 
sity, were  so  regardless  of  their  oaths  as  to  wear 
hoods  not  lined  throughout  with  fur.  Penalties 
were  prescribed  for  both  kinds  of  offenders  ;  but 
though  the  Oxford  undergraduate  never  succeeded 
in  annexing  the  hood,  he  gradually  acquired  the 
biretta,  which  his  successor  of  to-day  is  occasionally 
fined  for  not  wearing.  The  modern  gown  or  toga 
is  explained  by  Dr  RashdaU  as  derived  from  the 
robe  or  cassock  which  a  medieval  Master  of  Arts 
wore  under  his  cappa. 

The  discipHnary  regulations  of  fifteenth-  and 
sixteenth-century  Oxford  may  be  paralleled  from 
other  universities.  At  Louvain  there  was  a  kind 
of  proctorial  walk  undertaken  by  the  University 
official  known  as  the  Promotor.  On  receiving 
three  or  four  hours'  notice  from  the  Rector,  the 
Promotor,  with  a  staff  of  servants,  perambulated  the 
streets  at  night,  and  he  and  his  "  buUdogs  ''  received 
a  fine  from  anyone  whom  they  apprehended. 
Offending  students  caught  in  flagrante  delicto  he 
conducted  to  the  University  prison,  and  others  he 
reported  to  the  Rector.  "  Notabiles  personae  " 
might  be  incarcerated  in  a  monastery  incorporated 
with  the  University.  Arms  found  upon  anyone 
were  forfeited.  The^  Promotor  was  also  the  Univer- 
sity gaoler,  and  was  responsible  for  the  safe  custody 
of  prisoners,  and  he  might  place  in  fetters  dangerous 


102   LIFE  M  Ttffi  MErmEVAL  UNIVERSITY 

prisoners  or  men  accused  of  serious  crimes.  Inter- 
views with  captives  had  to  take  place  in  his 
presence  ;  male  visitors  had  to  give  up  their  knives 
or  other  weapons  before  being  admitted,  and  female 
visitors  had  to  leave  their  cloaks  behind  them. 
Students  were  forbidden  to  walk  in  the  streets  at 
night  after  the  bell  of  St  MichaeFs  Church  had  been 
rung  at  nine  o'clock  in  winter,  and  ten  o'clock  in 
summer,  unless  they  were  accompanied  by  a  doctor 
or  a  "  gravis  persona  "  and  were  bearing  a  torch  or 
lantern.  The  list  of  offences  at  Louvain  are  much 
the  same  as  elsewhere,  but  an  eighteenth-century 
code  of  statutes  specially  prohibits  bathing  and 
skating.  The  laws  against  borrowing  and  lending 
were  unusually  strict,  and  no  student  under  twenty- 
five  years  was  allowed  to  sell  books  without  the 
consent  of  his  regent,  the  penalty  for  a  sixteenth- 
century  student  in  Arts  being  a  pubHc  flogging  in 
his  own  college. 

At  Leipsic,  the  University  was  generally  respon- 
sible for  the  discipline,  sometimes  even  when  the 
offences  had  been  committed  in  the  colleges  ;  and  a 
record  of  the  proceedings  of  the  Rector's  Court  from 
1524  to  1588,  which  was  published  by  Friedrich 
Zarncke,  the  learned  historian  of  Leipsic,  gives  us 
a  large  variety  of  incidents  of  University  life  in 
sixteenth-century  Germany.  Leipsic  possessed  a 
University  prison,  and  we  find,  in  1524,  two  students, 


UNIVERSITY  DISCIPLINE  103 

Philippus  Josman  and  Erasmus  Empedophillus, 
who  had  quarrelled,  and  msulted  each  other,  sen- 
tenced to  perform,  in  the  prison,  impositions  for  the 
Rector.  Six  or  eight  days'  imprisonment  is  a  fre- 
quent penalty  for  a  drunken  row.  A  college  official 
brings  to  the  Rector's  Court  in  1545  one  of  his 
pupils,  John  Ditz,  who  had  lost  much  money  by 
gambhng.  Ditz  and  one  of  his  friends,  Caspar 
Winckler,  who  had  won  six  florins  and  some  books 
from  him,  have  already  been  flogged  by  their  pre- 
ceptors :  they  are  now  sentenced  to  imprisonment, 
but  as  the  weather  is  very  cold,  they  are  to  be 
released  after  one  day's  detention,  and  sent  back 
to  their  preceptors  to  be  flogged  again.  Their 
companions  are  sentenced  to  return  any  money, 
books  or  garments  which  they  had  won  in  gambhng 
games.  A  student  of  the  name  of  Valentine  Muff 
complains  to  the  Rector  that  his  pedagogue  has 
beaten  and  reproved  him  undeservedly  :  after  an 
inquiry  he  is  condemned  to  the  rods  "  once  and 
again."  Eor  throwing  stones  at  windows  a  student 
is  fined  one  florin  in  addition  to  the  cost  of  replacing 
them.  For  grave  moral  offences  flnes  of  three 
florins  are  imposed,  and  the  penalty  is  not  infre- 
quently reduced.  A  month's  imprisonment  is  the 
alternative  of  the  flne  of  three  florins,  but  if  the 
weather  is  cold,  the  culprit,  who  has  been  guilty 
of  gross  immorality,  is  let  off  with  two  florins.     A 


104    LIFE  IN  THE  MEDIEVAL  UNIVERSITY 

drunken  youth  who  meets  some  girls  in  the  evening 
and  tries  to  compel  them  to  enter  his  college,  is 
sentenced  to  five  days'  imprisonment,  but  is  re- 
leased on  the  intercession  of  the  girls  and  many 
others.  An  attack  on  a  servant  with  a  knife  is 
punished  by  forfeiture  of  the  knife  and  a  fine  of 
half  a  florin,  and  a  penalty  of  a  florin  (divided  among 
the  four  victims)  is  inflicted  for  entering  a  house 
with  arms  and  wounding  the  fingers  of  some  of  its 
inhabitants.  A  ruffian  of  noble  birth,  who  had  been 
guilty  of  gross  immorality  and  of  violence,  declines 
to  appear  in  the  Rector's  Court,  and  is  duly  sentenced 
to  expulsion.  But  his  father  promises  to  satisfy 
the  University  and  the  injured  party,  and  seven 
nobles  write  asking  that  he  should  be  pardoned, 
and  a  compromise  is  made,  by  which  he  appears  in 
court  and  pays  a  fine.  For  the  University  offence 
of  having  as  an  attendant  a  boy  who  is  not  enrolled, 
Valentine  Leo  is  fined  three  florins,  which  were  paid. 
"  But  since  he  appeared  to  be  good  and  learned, 
and  produced  an  excellent  specimen  of  his  singular 
erudition,  and  wrote  learned  verses  and  other  com- 
positions to  the  Rector  and  his  assessors,  by  which 
he  begged  pardon  and  modestly  purged  his  offence, 
and  especially  as  a  doctor,  whose  sons  he  taught, 
and  others  interceded  for  him,  he  easily  procured 
that  the  florins  should  be  returned  to  the  doctor 
who  had  paid  them  for  him," 


UNIVERSITY  DISCIPLINE  105 

The  leniency  of  the  punishments  for  grave  moral 
offences,  as  contrasted  with  the  strict  insistance 
upon  the  lesser  matters  of  the  law,  cannot  fail  to 
impress  modern  readers,  but  this  is  not  a  character- 
istic peculiar  to  Leipsic.  Fiaes,  and  in  the  fifteenth 
and  sixteenth  centuries,  whippings  were  frequently 
inflicted  in  all  universities  for  violent  attacks  upon 
the  person.  Dr  Rashdall  quotes  a  case  at  Ingolstadt 
where  a  student  who  had  killed  another  in  a  drunken 
bout  was  let  off  with  the  confiscation  of  his  goods, 
and  the  penalty  of  expulsion  was  remitted  ;  and  the 
eighteenth-century  history  of  Corpus  Christi  College 
at  Oxford  suppHes  more  recent  instances  of  punish- 
ments which  could  scarcely  be  said  to  fit  the  crime. 

The  statutes  of  the  French  universities  outside 
Paris  and  of  the  three  medieval  Scottish  univer- 
sities (St  Andrews,  Glasgow,  and  Aberdeen)  supply 
many  illustrations  of  the  regulations  we  have 
noted  elsewhere,  but  contain  little  that  is  unusual. 
St  Andrews,  which  allowed  hawking,  forbade  the 
dangerous  game  of  football.  The  Faculty  of  Arts 
at  Glasgow  in  1532  issued  an  edict  which  has  a 
curious  resemblance  to  the  Eton  custom  of  "  shirk- 
ing.'' Reverence  and  filial  fear  were  so  important, 
said  the  masters,  that  no  student  was  to  meet  the 
Rector,  the  Dean,  or  one  of  the  Regents  openly  in 
the  streets,  by  day  or  by  night ;  immediately  he 
was  observed  he  must  sUnk  away  and  escape  as 


\ 


106  LIFE  IN  THE  MEDIEVAL  UNIVERSITY 


best  he  could,  and  he  must  not  be  found  again  in  the 
streets  without  special  leave.  The  penalty  was  a 
public  flogging.  Similarly,  even  a  lawful  game  must 
not  be  played  in  the  presence  of  a  regent.  Flogging 
was  a  recognised  penalty  in  all  the  Scottish  univer- 
sities ;  it  found  its  way  into  the  system  at  St  Andrews 
and  Glasgow,  and  was  introduced  at  once  at  Aberdeen. 
The  early  statutes  of  Aberdeen  University  (King's 
CoUege)  unfortunately  exist  only  in  the  form  in  which 
they  were  edited  in  the  seventeenth  century.  They  in- 
clude a  rhymed  series  of  rules  for  behaviour  at  table, 
which,  though  post-medieval  in  date,  give  us  some 
clue  to  the  table  manners  of  the  medieval  students  : — 

Majorem  ne  praevenia-  \ 

Locum  assignatum  tenea- 

Mensae  assignatae  accumba- 

Manibus  mundis  nudis  eda- 

Aperientes  caput  f  aciem  ne  obtega- 

Vultus  hilares  habea- 

Rite  in  convictu  comeda- 

Sal  cultello  capia- 

Salinum  ne  dejicia- 

Manubrium  baud  aciem  porriga-  ^     tis 

Tribus  cibos  digitis  prehenda- 

Cultro  priusquam  dente  tera- 

Ossa  in  orbem  depona- 
Vel  pavimentum  jacia- 
Modeste  omnia  f  acia- 
Ossa  si  in  convivas  jacia- 
Nedum  si  illos  vulnera- 
Ne  queramini  si  vapula- 


UNIVERSITY  DISCIPLINE  107 


Post  haustum  labia  deterga- 
Modicum,  sed  crebro  biba- 

Os  ante  haustum  evacua- 

XJngues  sordidulos  fugia-  V      . . 

Ructantes  terga  reflecta- 
Ne  scalpatis  cavea- 

Edere  mementote  ut  viva- 

Non  vivere  ut  corned-  j 

The  Economist's  accounts  at  Aberdeen  have  been 
preserved  for  part  of  the  year  1579,  and  show  that  the 
food  of  a  Scottish  student,  just  after  the  medieval 
period,  consisted  of  white  bread,  oat  bread,  beef, 
mutton,  butter,  small  fish,  partans  (crabs),  eggs, 
a  bill  of  fare  certainly  above  the  food  of  the  lower 
classes  in  Scotland  at  the  time.  The  drinks  men- 
tioned are  best  ale,  second  ale,  and  beer.  His 
victuals  interested  the  medieval  student ;  the  con- 
versation of  two  German  students,  as  pictured  in  a 
"students'  guide"  to  Heidelberg  (c/.  p.  116),  is 
largely  occupied  with  food.  "  The  veal  is  soft  and 
bad  :  the  caK  cannot  have  seen  its  mother  three 
times  :  no  one  in  my  country  would  eat  such  stuff  : 
the  drink  is  bitter.''  The  Httle  book  shows  us  the 
two  students  walking  in  the  meadows,  and  when 
they  reach  the  Neckar,  one  dissuades  the  other 
from  bathing  (a  dangerous  enterprise  forbidden  in 


108   LIFE  IN  THE  MEDIEVAL  UNIVERSITY 

the  statutes  of  some  universities,  including  Lou  vain 
and"  Glasgow).  They  quarrel  about  a  book,  and 
nearly  come  to  blows  ;  one  complains  that  the  other 
reported  him  to  the  master  for  sleeping  in  lecture. 
Both  speak  of  the  "  lupi,'"  the  spies  who  reported 
students  using  the  vernacular  or  visiting  the  kitchen. 
The  "  wolves ''  were  part  of  the  administrative 
machinery  of  a  German  University  ;  a  statute  of 
Leipsic  in  1507  orders  that,  according  to  ancient 
custom,  "  lupi ''  or  "  signatores  ''  be  appointed  to 
note  the  names  of  any  student  who  talked  German 
("  vulgarisantes '')  that  they  might  be  fined  in 
due  course,  the  money  being  spent  on  feasts.  One 
of  the  two  Heidelberg  students  complains  of  having 
been  given  a  "  signum  "  or  bad  mark  "  pro  sermone 
vulgariter  prolato,''  and  the  other  has  been  caught 
in  the  kitchen.  They  discuss  their  teachers  ;  one 
of  them  complains  of  a  lecture  because  "  nimis 
alta  gravisque  materia  est.''  The  Httle  book  gives, 
in  some  ways,  a  remarkable  picture  of  German 
student  life,  with  its  interests  and  its  temptations  ; 
but  it  raises  more  problems  than  it  solves,  and  affords 
a  fresh  illustration  of  the  difficulty  of  attempting 
to  recreate  the  life  of  the  past. 


CHAPTER  VI 

THE   JOCUND   ADVENT 

The  medieval  student  began  his  academic  career 
with  an  initiation  ceremony  which  varied  in  different 
countries  and  at  different  dates,  but  which,  so  far 
as  we  know,  always-involved^feasting  and  gener- 
ally implied  considerable  personal  discomfort.  The 
designation,  "  bejaunus ''  or  bajan,  which  signifies 
yellow-beak  ("  bee  jaune  "),  seems  to  have  been  given 
almost  everywhere  to  the  freshman,  and  the  custom 
of  receiving  the  fledgeUng  into  the  academic  society 
was,  towards  the  close  of  the  Middle  Ages,  no  mere 
tradition  of  student  etiquette,  but  an  acknowledged 
and  admitted  academic  rite.  The  tradition,  which 
dates  from  very  early  times,  and  which  has  so  many 
parallels  outside  University  history,  was  so  strong 
that  the  authorities  seem  to  have  deemed  it  wisest 
to  accept  it  and  to  be  content  with  trying  to  Hmit 
the  expense  and  the  "  ragging  ''  which  it  entailed. 
We  have  no  detailed  knowledge  of  the  initiation 
of  the  Parisian  student,  but  a  statute  made  by  the 
University  in  1342  proves  that  the  two  elements 
of  bullying  the  new-comer  and  feasting  at  his  expense 
were  both  involved  in  it.     It  relates  that  quarrels 

109 


/ 


no   LIFE  IN  THE  MEDIEVAL  UNIVERSITY 

frequently  arise  through  the  custom  of  seizing  the 
goods  of  simple  scholars  on  the  occasion  of  their 
"  bejaunia/'  and  compelling  them  to  expend  on 
feasting  the  money  on  which  they  intended  to  live. 
Insults,  blows,  and  other  dangers  are  the  general 
results  of  the  system,  and  the  University  orders  that 
no  one  shall  exact  money  or  anything  else  from 
bajans  except  the  "  socii ''  with  whom  they  live, 
and  they  may  take  only  a  free-will  offering.  Bajans 
are  to  reveal,  under  heavy  penalties,  the  names  of 
any  who  molest  them  by  word  or  blow,  threatening 
them  or  offering  them  insults.  Offenders  are  to  be 
handed  over  to  the  Provost  of  Paris  to  be  punished, 
but  not  "  ad  penam  sanguinis.'' 

A  fifteenth-century  code  of  statutes  of  the  Cister- 
cian College  at  Paris  (generally  much  less  stern 
than  one  would  expect  in  a  house  of  that  severe 
Order)  refers  to  the  traditions  that  had  grown  up 
in  the  College  about  the  initiation  of  a  bajan,  and 
to  the  "  insolentias  et  enormitates  mult  as  "  which 
accompanied  their  observance.  The  whole  of  the 
ceremonies  of  initiation  are  therefore  forbidden — 
"  omnes  receptiones  noviter  venientium,  quos 
voluntaria  opinione  Bejanos  nuncupare  solent,  cum 
suis  consequentiis,  necnon  bajulationes,  fibrationes 
.  tam  in  capitulo,  in  dormitorio,  in  parvis 
scholis,  in  jardinis,  quam  ubiubi,  et  tam  de  die 
quam  de  nocte/'     With  these  evil  customs  is  to  go 


THE  JOCUND  ADVENT  111 

the  very  name  of  the  Abbas  Bejanorum,  and  all 
"  vasa,  munimenta,  et  instrumenta ''  used  for  these 
ceremonies  are  to  be  given  up.  New-comers  in 
future  are  to  be  entrusted  to  the  care  of  discreet 
seniors,  who  will  instruct  them  in  the  honourable 
customs  of  the  College,  report  their  shortcomings 
in  church,  in  walks,  and  in  games,  supervise  their 
expenditure,  and  prevent  their  being  overcharged 
"  pro  jocundo  adventu ''  or  in  other  ways.  So 
strong  was  the  tradition  of  the  "  jocund  advent '' 
that  it  thus  finds  a  place  even  in  a  reformer's  con- 
stitution, and  we  find  references  to  it  elsewhere  in 
the  statutes  of  Parisian  colleges.  An  undated  early  i 
code,  drawn  up  for  the  Treasurer's  College,  orders  I 
the  members  to  fulfil  honestly  their  jocund  advent 
in  accordance  with  the  advice  of  their  fellow  students. 
At  Cornouaille,  the  new-comer  is  instructed  to  pay  i 
for  his  jocund  advent  neither  too  meanly  nor  with 
burdensome  extravagance,  but  in  accordance  with 
his  rank  and  his  means.  At  the  College  of  Dainville 
the  expense  of  the  bajan-hood  is  hmited  to  a  quart 
of  good  wine  ("  ultra  unum  sextarium  vini  non 
mediocris  suis  sociis  pro  novo  suo  ingressu  seu 
bejanno  non  sol  vat  ").  At  the  College  of  Cambray, 
a  bursar  is  to  pay  twenty  shilHngs  for  utensils,  and 
to  provide  a  pint  of  good  wine  for  the  fellows  then 
present  in  hall.  Dr  Rashdall  quotes  from  the  Register 
of  the  Sorbonne  an  instance  in  which  the  Abbot  of  the 


112  LIFE  IN  THE  MEDIEVAL  UNIVERSITY 

Bajans  was  fined  eight  shillings  (to  be  expended  in 
wine)  because  he  had  not  fulfilled  his  duties  in  regard 
to  the  cleansing  of  the  bajans  by  an  aspersion  of 
water  on  Innocents'  Day.  The  bajans  were  not 
only  washed,  but  carried  in  procession  upon  asses. 

The  statutes  of  the  universities  of  Southern  France, 
and  especially  of  Avignon  and  Aix,  give  us  some 
further  information,  and  we  possess  a  record  of  the 
proceedings  at  Avignon  of  the  Court  of  the  Abbot 
of  the  Bajans,  referred  to  in  the  passage  we  have 
quoted  from  the  regulations  of  the  Cistercian  College 
at  Paris.  Similar  prohibitions  occur  in  other 
College  statutes. 

At  Avignon,  the  Confraternity  of  St  Sebastian 
existed  largely  for  the  purgation  of  bajans  and  the 
control  of  the  abuses  which  had  grown  up  in  con- 
nection with  the  jocund  advent.  One  of  its  statutes, 
dated  about  1450,  orders  that  no  novice,  commonly 
called  a  bajan,  shall  be  admitted  to  the  purgation 
of  his  sins  or  take  the  honourable  name  of  student 
until  he  has  paid  the  sum  of  six  grossi  as  entrance 
money  to  the  Confraternity.  There  is  also  an 
annual  subscription  of  three  grossi,  and  the  pajrment 
of  these  sums  is  to  be  enforced  by  the  seizure  of 
books,  unless  the  defaulter  can  prove  that  he  is 
unable  to  pay  his  entrance  fee  or  subscription,  as 
the  case  may  be.  The  Prior  and  Councillors  of  the 
Fraternity  have  power  to  grant  a  dispensation  on 


THE  JOCUND  ADVENT  113 

the  ground  of  poverty.  After  providing  his  feast, 
and  taking  an  oath,  the  bajan  is  to  be  admitted 
"  jocose  et  benigne/'  is  to  lose  his  base  name,  and 
after  a  year  is  to  bear  the  honourable  title  of  student. 
Noblemen  and  beneficed  clergy  are  to  pay  double. 
The  bajan  is  implored  to  comply  with  these  regula- 
tions "  corde  hilarissimo,''  and  his  "  socii ''  are  adjured 
to  remember  that  they  should  not  seek  their  own 
things  but  the  things  of  Christ,  and  should  therefore 
not  spend  on  feasts  anything  over  six  grossi  paid 
by  a  bajan,  but  devote  it  to  the  honour  of  God  and 
St  Sebastian.  The  Court  of  the  Abbot  of  the 
Bajans,  at  the  College  of  Annecy,  in  the  same  Univer- 
sity, throws  a  little  more  light  on  the  actual  cerem^ony 
of  purgation.  The  bajans  are  summoned  into  the 
Abbot's  Court,  where  each  of  them  receives,  pro 
forma,  a  blow  from  a  ferule.  They  all  stand  in  the 
Court,  with  uncovered  heads  and  by  themselves 
("  Mundus  ab  immundo  venit  separandus  ")',  under 
the  penalty  of  two  blows  they  are  required  to  keep 
silence  ("  quia  vox  funesta  in  judiciis  audiri  non 
debet.'')  The  bajaH  Avho  has  patiently  and  honestly 
served  his  time  and  is  about  to  be  purged,  is  given, 
in  parody  of  an  Inception  in  the  University,  a 
passage  in  the  Institutes  to  expound,  and  his  fellow- 
bajans,  under  pain  of  two  blows,  have  to  dispute 
with  him.  If  he  obtains  licence,  the  two  last-purged 
bajans  bring  water  "  pro  lavatione  et  purgatione," 

H 


114  LIFE  IN  THE  MEDIEVAL  UNIVERSITY 

The  other  rules  of  the  Abbot's  Court  deal  with  the 
duties  to  be  performed  by  the  youngest  freshman 
in  Chapel  (and  at  table  if  servants  are  lacking),  and 
order  bajans  to  give  _place  to  seniors  and  not  to  go 
near  the  fire  in  hall  when  seniors  are  present.  No 
one,  either  senior  or  freshman,  is  to  apply  the  term 
"  Domine  "  to  a  bajan,  and  no  freshman  is  to  call 
a  senior  man  a  bajan.  The  Court  met  twice  a 
week,  and  it  could  impose  penalties  upon  senior 
men  as  well  as  bajans,  but  corporal  punishment  is 
threatened  only  against  the  "  infectos  et  fetidis- 
simos  bejannos.'' 

At  Aix,  a  fifteenth-century  code  of  statutes  orders 
every  bajan  to  pay  fees  to  the  University,  and  to 
give  a  feast  to  the  Rector,  the  Treasurer,  and  the 
Promotor.  The  Rector  is  to  bring  one  scholar 
with  him,  and  the  Promotor  two,  to  help  "  ad  pur- 
gandum  bejaunum,''  and  the  bajan  is  to  invite  a 
bedel  and  others.  Dispensations  on  the  ground  of 
poverty  could  be  obtained  from  the  Rector,  and 
two  or  three  freshmen  might  make  their  purgation 
together,  "  cum  infinitas  est  vitanda,''  even  an 
infinity  of  feasts  is  to  be  avoided.  The  Promotor 
gives  the  first  blow  with  a  frying-pan,  and  the 
scholars  who  help  in  the  purgation  are  Hmited  to 
two  or  three  blows  each,  since  an  infinity  of  blows 
is  also  to  be  avoided.  The  Rector  may  remit  a 
portion  of  the  penalty  at  the  request  of  noble  or 


THE  JOCUND  ADVENT  115 

honourable  ladies  who  happen  to  be  prjesent,  for 
it  is  useless  to  invite  ladies  if  no  remission  is  to  be 
obtained.  If  the  bajan  is  proud  or  troublesome, 
the  pleas  of  the  ladies  whom  he  has  invited  will  not 
avail ;  he  must  have  his  three  blows  from  each 
of  his  purgators,  without  any  mercy.  If  a  fresh- 
man failed  to  make  his  purgation  within  a  month, 
it  was  to  take  place  "  in  studio  sub  libro  super 
anum  '"  ;  the  choice  between  a  book  and  a  frying- 
pan  as  a  weapon  of  castigation  is  characteristic  of 
the  solemn  foohng  of  the  jocund  advent.  The 
seizure  of  goods  and  of  books,  mentioned  in  some 
of  the  statutes  we  have  quoted,  is  frequently  for- 
bidden. At  Orleans  the  statutes  prohibit  leading 
the  bajan  "  ut  ovis  ad  occisionem  ''  to  a  tavern 
to  be  forced  to  spend  his  money,  and  denounce  the 
custom  as  provocative  of  "  ebrietates,  turpiloquia, 
lascivias,  pernoctationes  ''  and  other  evils.  They 
also  forbid  the  practice  of  compelling  him  to  cele- 
brate the  jocund  advent  by  seizing  books,  one  or 
more,  or  by  exacting  anything  from  him.  There  are 
numerous  other  references  in  French  statutes,  some 
of  which  denounce  the  hejaunia  as  sufficiently  ex- 
pensive to  deter  men  from  coming  to  the  University, 
but  details  are  disappointingly  few. 

The  initiation  of  the  bajan  attained  its  highest 
development  in  the  German  universities,  where  we 
find  the  French  conception  of  the  bajan,  as  afflicted 


116   LIFE  m  THE  MEDIEVAL  UNIVERSITY 

with  mortal  sin  and  requiring  purification,  combined 
with  the  characteristic  German  conception  of  him  as 
a  wild  animal  who  has  to  be  tamed.  His  reforma- 
tion was  accomplished  by  the  use  of  planes,  augers, 
saws,  pincers  and  other  instruments  suitable  for 
removing  horns,  tusks  and  claws  from  a  dangerous 
animal,  and  the  Deposition,  or  "  modus  deponendi 
cornua  iis  qui  in  numerum  studiosorum  co-optari 
volunt,''  became  a  recognised  University  ceremony. 
The  statutes  attempt  to  check  it,  e.g.  at  Vienna  the 
bajan  is  not  to  be  oppressed  with  undue  exactions 
or  otherwise  molested  or  insulted,  and  at  Leipsic 
the  insults  are  not  to  take  the  form  of  blows,  stones, 
or  water.  At  Prague,  "  those  who  lay  down  (de- 
ponent) their  rustic  manners  and  ignorance  are  to 
be  treated  more  mildly  and  moderately  than  in 
recent  years  (1544),  and  their  lips  or  other  parts  of 
their  bodies  are  not  to  be  defiled  with  filth  or  putrid 
and  impure  substances  which  produce  sickness. 
But  the  Prague  statute  contemplates  a  Deposition 
ceremony  in  which  the  freshman  is  assumed  to  be 
a  goat  with  horns  to  be  removed.  A  black-letter 
handbook  or  manual  for  German  students,  consist- 
ing of  dialogues  or  conversational  Latin  (much  on  the 
principle  of  tourists'  conversational  dictionaries), 
opens  with  a  description  of  the  preparations  for  a 
Deposition.  The  book,  which  has  been  reprinted 
in     Zarncke's     Die     Deutschen     UniversiUiten     im 


THE    JOCUND  ADVENT  117 

Mittelalter,  is  (from  internal  evidence)  a  picture  of 
life   at   Heidelberg,    but    it   is   written    in    general 

»  terms. 
The  new-comer  seeks  out  a  master  that  he  may  be 
entered  on  the  roll  of  the  University  and  be  absolved 
from  his  bajan-ship.  "  Are  your  parents  rich  ? '' 
is  one  of  the  master's  first  questions,  and  he  is  told 
that  they  are  moderately  prosperous  mechanics 
who  are  prepared  to  do  the  best  for  their  son.  The 
jcnaster  takes  him  to  the  Rector  to  be  admitted, 
and  then  asks  him,  "  Where  do  you  intend  to  have 
your  '  deposition  '  as  a  bajan  ?  "  The  boy  leaves 
all  arrangements  in  the  master's  hands,  reminding 
him  of  his  poverty,  and  it  is  agreed  to  invite  three 
masters,  two  bachelors,  and  some  friends  of  the 
master  to  the  ceremony.  With  a  warning  that  he 
must  not  be  afraid  if  strangers  come  and  insult 
him,  for  it  is  all  part  of  the  tradition  of  a  bajan's 
advent,  the  master  goes  to  make  arrangements  for 
the  feast.  Two  youths,  Camillus  and  Bartoldus, 
then  arrive,  and  pretend  to  be  greatly  disturbed 
by  a  foul  smell,  so  strong  that  it  almost  drives  them 
from  the  room.  Camillus  prepares  to  go,  but 
Bartoldus  insists  upon  an  investigation  of  the  cause. 
Camillus  then  sees  a  monster  of  terrible  aspect, 
with  huge  horns  and  teeth,  a  nose  curved  like  the 
beak  of  an  owl,  wild  eyes  and  threatening  Hps. 
"  Let  us  flee,"  he  says,  "  lest  it  attack  us."    Bartoldus 


118   LIFE  IN  THE  MEDIEVAL  UNIVERSITY 

then  guesses  that  it  is  a  bajan,  a  creature  which 
Camillus  has  never  seen,  but  of  whose  ferocity  he 
has  heard.  The  bold  Bartoldus  then  addresses  the 
bajan.  "  Domine  Joannes/'  he  says,  "  whence  do 
you  come  ?  Certainly  you  are  a  compatriot  of 
mine,  give  me  your  hand/'  Joannes  stretches  out 
his  hand,  but  is  met  with  the  indignant  question, 
"  Do  you  come  to  attack  me  with  your  nails  ?  Why 
do  you  sit  down,  wild  ass  ?  Do  you  not  see  that 
masters  are  present,  venerable  men,  in  whose  pre- 
sence it  becomes  you  to  stand  ?  "  Joannes  stands, 
and  is  further  insulted.  His  tormentors  then  affect 
to  be  sorry  for  him  and  make  touching  references 
to  his  mother's  feelings  ("  Quid,  si  m.ater  sciret,  quae 
unice  eum  amat  ?  "),  but  relapse  into  abuse  (0 
beane,  0  asine,  0  foetide  hirce,  0  olens  capra,  0 
bufo,  0  cifra,  0  figura  nihili,  0  tu  omnino  nihil). 
"  What  are  we  to  do  with  him  ?  "  says  Camillus, 
and  Bartoldus  suggests  the  possibility  of  his  reforma- 
tion and  admission  into  their  society.  But  they 
must  have  a  doctor.  Camillus  is  famous  and 
learned  in  the  science  of  medicine,  and  can  remove 
his  horns,  file  down  his  teeth,  cure  his  blindness,  and 
shave  his  long  and  horrible  beard.  While  he  goes 
for  the  necessary  instruments,  Bartoldus  teUs  the 
victim  to  cheer  up,  for  he  is  about  to  be  cured  from 
every  evil  of  mind  and  body,  and  to  be  admitted 
to    the    privileges    of    the    University.     Camillus 


THE  JOCUND  ADVENT  119 

returns  with  ointment,  and  they  proceed  to  some 
horseplay  which  Joannes  resists  (Compesce  eius 
impetus  et  ut  equum  intractatumx  ipsum  ilium 
constringe) . ' '  Tusks  and  teeth  having  been  removed, 
the  victim  is  supposed  to  be  dying,  and  is  made  to 
confess  to  Bartoldus  a  Hst  of  crimes.  His  penance 
is  to  entertain  his  masters  "  largissima  coena,'''  not 
forgetting  the  doctor  who  has  just  healed  him,  and 
the  confessor  who  has  just  heard  his  confession,  for 
they  also  must  be  entertained  "  pingui  refectione." 
But  this  confessor  can  only  define  the  penance,  he 
cannot  give  absolution,  a  right  which  belongs  to  the 
masters.  Joannes  is  then  taken  to  his  master  for  the 
Deposition  proper.  Dr  Rashdall  describes  the  scene, 
from  a  rare  sixteenth-century  tract,  which  contains 
an  illustration  of  a  Deposition,  and  a  defence  of  it 
by  Luther,  who  justified  his  taking  part  in  one  of 
these  ceremonies  by  giving  it  a  moral  and  sym- 
bolical meaning.  The  bajan  lies  upon  a  table,  under- 
going the  planing  of  his  tusks,  "  while  a  saw  lies 
upon  the  ground,  suggestive  of  the  actual  de-horning 
of  the  beast.  The  work  itself  and  later  apologies 
for  the  institution  mention  among  the  instruments 
of  torture  a  comb  and  scissors  for  cutting  the 
victim's  hair,  an  auriscalpium  for  his  ears,  a  knife 
for  cutting  his  nails  ;  while  the  ceremony  further 
appears  to  include  the  adornment  of  the  youth's 
chin  with  a  beard  by  means  of  burned  cork  or  other 


120   LIFE  IN  THE  MEDIEVAL  UNIVERSITY 

pigment,   and  the  administration,   internal  or  ex- 
ternal, of  salt  and  wine/' 

In  the  English  universities  we  have  no  trace  of 
the  "  jocund  advent ''  during  the  medieval  period, 
but  it  is  impossible  to  doubt  that  this  kind  of 
horseplay  existed  at  Oxford  and  Cambridge.  The 
statutes  of  New  College  refer  to  "  that  most  vile  and 
horrid  sport  of  shaving  beards  ''  ;  it  was  "  wont  to 
be  practised  on  the  night  preceding  the  Inception 
of  a  Master  of  Arts,"  but  the  freshmen  may  have 
been  the  victims,  as  they  were  in  similar  ceremonies 
at  the  Feast  of  Fools  in  France.  Antony  a  Wood, 
writing  of  his  own  undergraduate  days  in  the  middle 
of  the  seventeenth  century,  tells  that  charcoal  fires 
were  made  in  the  Hall  at  Merton  on  Holy  Days, 
from  All  Saints'  Eve  to  Candlemas,  and  that 

"  at  all  these  fires  every  night,  which  began  to  be 
made  a  little  after  five  of  the  clock,  the  senior 
undergraduates  would  bring  into  the  hall  the 
juniors  or  freshmen  between  that  time  and  six 
of  the  clock,  there  make  them  sit  downe  on  a 
forme  in  the  middle  of  the  hall,  joyning  to  the 
declaiming  desk  ;  which  done,  every  one  in  order 
was  to  speake  some  pretty  apothegme,  or  make 
a  jest  or  bull,  or  speake  some  eloquent  nonsense, 
to  make  the  company  laugh.  But  if  any  of  the 
freshmen  came  off  dull,  or  not  cleverly,  some  of 
the  forward  or  pragmatised  seniors  would  "  tuck  " 
them,  that  is,  set  the  nail  of  their\ thumb  to  their 


THE  JOCUND  ADVENT  121 

chin,  just  under  the  lower  lipp,  and  by  the  help 
of  their  other  fingers  under  the  chin,  they  would 
give  him  a  mark,  which  sometimes  would  produce 
blood/^ 

On  Shrove  Tuesday,  1648,  Merton  freshmen 
entertained  the  other  undergraduates  to  a  brass  pot 
"  full  of  cawdel/'  Wood,  who  was  a  freshman, 
describes  how 

"  every  freshman  according  to  seniority,  was  to 
pluck  off  his  go^Tie  and  band  and  if  possible  to 
make  himself  look  Uke  a  scoundrell.  This  done, 
the}^  conducted  each  other  to  the  high  table,  and 
there  made  to  stand  on  a  forme  placed  thereon ; 
from  whence  the}"  were  to  speak  their  speech  with 
an  audible  voice  to  the  company  ;  which  if  well 
done,  the  person  that  spoke  it  was  to  have  a  cup 
of  cawdle  and  no  salted  drink  ;  if  indifferently, 
some  cawdle  and  some  salted  drink  ;  but  if  dull, 
nothing  was  given  to  him  but  salted  drink  or  salt 
put  in  college  beere,  with  tucks  to  boot.  After- 
wards when  they  w^ere  to  be  admitted  into  the 
fraternity,  the  senior  cook  was  to  administer  to 
them  an  oath  over  an  old  shoe,  part  of  which  runs 
thus  :  Item  tu  jurabis  quod  penniless  bench  (a 
seat  at  Carfax)  non  visit abis'  &c.  The  rest  is 
forgotten,  and  none  there  are  now  remembers  it. 
After  w^hich  spoken  with  gravity,  the  Freshman 
kist  the  shoe,  put  on  his  go^Ti  and  band  and  took 
his  place  among  the  seniors/' 


122   LIFE  IN  THE  MEDIEVAL  UNIVERSITY 

"  This/'  says  Wood,  "  was  the  way  and  custom 
that  had  been  used  in  the  college,  time  out  of  mind, 
to  initiate  the  freshmen  ;  but  between  that  time 
and  the  restoration  of  K.  Ch.  2  it  was  disused,  and 
now  such  a  thing  is  absolutely  forgotten/'  His 
whole  description,  and  especially  the  parody  of  the 
master's  oath  not  to  visit  Stamford,  goes  to  show 
that  he  was  right  in  attributing  the  ceremonies  to 
remote  antiquity,  and  there  are  indications  that 
the  initiation  of  freshmen  was  practised  elsewhere 
in  Oxford.  Hearne  speaks  of  similar  customs 
at  BalHol  and  at  Brasenose,  and  an  eighteenth- 
century  editor  of  Wood  asserts  that  "  striking 
traces  "  of  the  practice  "  may  be  found  in  many 
societies  in  this  place,  and  in  some  a  very  near 
resemblance  of  it  has  been  kept  up  till  within  these 
few  years/'  Our  quotation  from  Wood  may  there- 
fore serve  to  illustrate  the  treatment  of  the  medieval 
freshman  at  Oxford.  We  possess  no  details  of  the 
jocund  advent  at  Cambridge,  but  in  the  medieval 
Scottish  universities,  where  the  name  of  bajan 
still  survives,  there  were  relics  of  it  within  recent 
times.  At  St  Andrews,  a  feast  of  raisins  was  the 
last  survival  of  the  bajan 's  "  standing  treat,"  and 
attacks  made  by  "  Semis  "  (second  year  men)  upon 
a  bajan  class  emerging  from  a  lecture-room  were  an 
enlivening  feature  of  student  life  at  Aberdeen  up 
to  the  end  of  the  nineteenth  century.     The  weapons 


THE  JOCUND  ADVENT  123 

in  use  were  notebooks,  and  the  belabouring  of 
Aberdeen  bajans  with  these  instruments  may  be 
historically  connected  with  the  chastisement  which 
we  have  found  in  some  of  the  medieval  initiation 
ceremonies.  It  would  be  fanciful  to  connect  the 
go w^n- tearing,  which  was  also  a  feature  of  these 
attacks,  with  the  assaults  upon  the  Rector's  robe 
at  Bologna. 


CHAPTER  VII 

TOWN   AND    GOWN 

The  violence  which  marked  medieval  life  as  a  whole 
was  not  likely  to  be  absent  in  towns  where  numbers 
of  young  clerks  were  members  of  a  corporation  at 
variance  with  the  authorities  of  the  city.  Univer- 
sity records  are  full  of  injuries  done  to  masters  and 
students  by  the  townsfolk,  and  of  privileges  and 
immunities  obtained  from  Pope  or  King  or  Bishop 
at  the  expense  of  the  burgesses.  When  a  new 
University  was  founded,  it  was  sometimes  taken  for 
granted  that  these  conflicts  must  arise,  and  that 
the  townsmen  were  certain  to  be  in  the  wrong. 
Thus,  when  Duke  RudoM  IV.  founded  the  University 
of  Vienna  in  1365,  he  provided  beforehand  for 
such  contingencies  by  ordaining  that  an  attack  on 
a  student  leading  to  the  loss  of  a  limb  or  other 
member  of  the  body  was  to  be  punished  by  the 
removal  of  the  same  member  from  the  body  of  the 
assailant,  and  that  for  a  lesser  injury  the  offender's 
hand  was  to  be  wounded  ("  debet  manus  pugione 
transfigi  ").  The  criminal  might  redeem  his  person 
by  a  fine  of  a  hundred  silver  marks  for  a  serious 
injury  and  of  forty  marks  for  slighter  damages,  the 

124 


TOWN  AND  GOWN  125 

"victim  to  receive  half  of  the  fine.  Assailants  of 
students  were  not  to  have  benefit  of  sanctuary. 
Oxford  history  abounds  in  town  and  gown  riots,  the 
most  famous  of  which  is  the  battle  of  St  Scholas- 
tica's  Day  (10th  February)  1354.  The  riot  originated 
in  a  tavern  quarrel ;  some  clerks  disapproved  of  the 
wine  at  an  inn  near  Carfax,  and  (in  Antony  Wood's 
words)  "  the  vintner  giving  them  stubborn  and 
saucy  language,  they  threw  the  wine  and  vessel 
at  his  head.'"  His  friends  urged  the  inn-keeper 
"  not  to  put  up  with  the  abuse,"  and  rang  the  bell 
of  St  Martin's  Church.  A  mob  at  once  assembled, 
armed  with  bows  and  arrows  and  other  weapons ; 
they  attacked  every  scholar  who  passed,  and  even 
fired  at  the  Chancellor  when  he  attempted  to  allay 
the  tumult.  The  justly  indignant  Chancellor  re- 
torted by  ringing  St  Mary's  bell  and  a  mob  of 
students  assembled,  also  armed  (in  spite  of  many 
statutes  to  the  contrary).  A  battle  royal  raged  till 
nightfall,  at  which  time  the  fray  ceased,  no  one 
scholar  or  townsman  being  killed  or  m^ortally 
wounded  or  maimed."  If  the  matter  had  ended 
then,  Uttle  would  have  been  heard  of  the  story, 
but  next  day  the  townsmen  stationed  eighty  armed 
men  in  St  Giles's  Church,  who  sallied  out  upon 
"  certain  scholars  walking  after  dinner  in  Beaumont 
killed  one  of  them,  and  wounded  others.  A  second 
battle  followed,  in  which  the  citizens,  aided  by  some 


126  LIFE  IN  THE  MEDIEVAL  UNIVERSITY 

countrymen,  defeated  the  scholars,  and  ravaged  their 
halls,  slaying  and  wounding.  Night  interrupted 
their  operations,  but  on  the  following  day,  "  with 
hideous  noises  and  clamours  they  came  and  invaded 
the  scholars'  houses  .  .  .  and  those  that  resisted 
them  and  stood  upon  their  defence  (particularly 
some  chaplains)  they  killed  or  else  in  a  grievous 
sort  wounded.  .  .  .  The  crowns  of  some  chaplains, 
that  is,  all  the  skin  so  far  as  the  tonsure  went,  these 
diabolical  imps  flayed  off  in  scorn  of  their  clergy. '' 

The  injured  University  was  fuUy  avenged.  The 
King  granted  it  jurisdiction  over  the  city,  and, 
especially,  control  of  the  market,  and  the  Bishop 
of  Lincoln  placed  the  townsmen  under  an  interdict 
which  was  removed  only  on  condition  that  the 
Mayor  and  Bailiffs,  for  the  time  being,  and  "  three- 
score of  the  chief  est  Burghers,  should  personally 
appear  ''  every  St  Scholastica's  Day  in  St  Mary's 
Church,  to  attend  a  mass  for  the  souls  of  the  slain. 
The  tradition  that  they  were  to  wear  halters  or 
silken  cords  has  no  authority,  but  they  were  each  "  to 
offer  at  the  altar  one  penny,  of  which  oblation  forty 
pence  should  be  distributed  to  forty  poor  scholars 
of  the  University.''  The  custom,  with  some  modi- 
.figations,  survived  the  Reformation,  and  it  was  not^ 
till  the  jiineteenth  nftntnry  jhhat  the  Mayor  of 
Oxford  ceased  to  have  cause  to  regret  the  battle^ 
of  St  Scholastica's  Day. 


\ 


TOWN  AND  GOWN  127 

The  accounts  of  St  Scholastica's  Day  and  of  most 
other  riots  which  have  come  down  to  us  are  written 
from  the  standpoint  of  the  scholars,  but  the  records 
of  the  city  of  Oxford  give  less  detailed  but  not  less 
credible  instances  of  assaults  by  members  of  the 
University.  On  the  eve  of  St  John  Baptist's  Day 
in  1306,  for  example,  the  tailors  of  Oxford  were 
celebrating  Midsummer  "  cum  Cytharis  Viellis  et 
aliis  diversis  instrumentis/'  After  midnight,  they 
went  out  "  de  shoppis  suis  "  and  danced  and  sang 
in  the  streets.  A  clerk,  irritated  by  the  noise, 
attacked  them  with  a  drawn  sword,  wounded  one 
of  them,  and  was  himself  mortally  wounded  in  the 
skirmish.  Of  twenty-nine  coroners'  inquests  which 
have  been  preserved  for  the  period  1297-1322, 
thirteen  are  murders  committed  by  scholars. 
Attacks  on  townsmen  were  not  mere  undergraduate 
follies,  but  were  countenanced  and  even  led  by 
officials  of  the  University,  e.g.  on  a  March  night  in 
1526  one  of  the  proctors  "  sate  uppon  a  blocke  in 
the  streete  afore  the  shoppe  of  one  Robert  Jermyns, 
a  barber,  havinge  a  pole  axe  in  his  hand,  a  black 
cloake  on  his  backe,  and  a  hatt  on  his  head,''  and 
organised  a  riot  in  which  many  townsmen  were 
"  striken  downe  and  sore  beaten."  Citizens'  houses 
were  attacked  and  "  the  saide  Proctour  and  his 
company  .  .  .  called  for  fire,"  threatening  to  burn 
the  houses,  and  insulting  the  inmates  with  oppro- 


128   LIFE  IN  THE  MEDIEVAL  UNIVERSITY 

brious  names.  When  such  an  incident  as  this  was 
possible,  it  was  of  Httle  use  for  the  University  to 
issue  regulations  or  even  to  punish  less  exalted 
sinners,  and  the  town  must  have  suffered  much  from 
the  outrages  of  scholars  and  of  the  "  chamber- 
dekens ''  or  pretended  scholars  of  the  University, 
who  were  responsible  for  much  of  the  mischief. 
At  Paris  things  became  so  bad  that  the  Parlement 
had  to  issue  a  series  of  poUce  regulations  to  suppress 
the  bands  of  scholars,  or  pretended  scholars,  who 
wandered  about  the  streets  at  night,  disguised  and 
armed.  They  attacked  passers-by,  and  if  they  were 
wounded  in  the  affray,  their  medical  friends,  we  are 
told,  dressed  their  wounds,  so  that  they  eluded 
discovery  in  the  morning.  The_history  of  ever^ 
University  town  providesjnstances  of  street  con- 
flicts— the  records  of  Orleans  and  Toulouse  abound 
in  them — but  we  must  be  content  with  a  tale  from 
Leipsic. 

The  pages  of  the  "  Acta  Rectorum  ''  at  Leipsic 
are  full  of  illustrations  of  the  wilder  side  of  student 
Hfe,  from  which  we  extract  the  story  of  one  un- 
^  happy  year.  The  year  1545  opened  very  badly, 
says  the  "  Rector's  Chronicle,''  with  three  homicides. 
On  Holy  Innocents'  Day,  a  bachelor  was  murdered 
by  a  skinner  in  a  street  riot,  and  the  murderer, 
though  he  was  seen  by  some  respectable  citizens, 
was  allowed  to  escape.      A  student  who  killed  a 


TOWN  AND  GOWN  129 

man  on  the  night  of  the  Sunday  after  the  Epiphany 
was  punished  by  the  University  in  accordance  with 
its  statutes  (i.e.  by  imprisonment  for  life  in  the 
bishop's  prison).  The  third  murder  was  that  of  a 
young  bachelor  who  was  walking  outside  the  city, 
when  two  sons  of  rustics  in  the  neighbourhood  fell 
on  him  and  killed  him.  Their  names  were  known,  y^ 
but  the  city  authorities  refused  to  take  action,  and  ^ 
the  populace,  believing  that  they  would  not  be 
punished,  pursued  the  members  of  the  University 
with  continued  insults  and  threats.  After  an 
unusually  serious  attack  cu7n  bombardis,  (in  which, 
"  by  the  divine  clemency,''  a  young  mxcchanic  was 
wounded),  the  University,  faihng  to  obtain  redress, 
appealed  to  Prince  Maurice  of  Saxony,  who  pro- 
mised to  protect  the  University.  A  conference 
between  the  University  and  the  city  authorities 
took  place,  and  edicts  against  carrying  arms  were 
published,  but  the  skinners*  immediately  indulged  in  ^ 
another  outrage.  One  of  them,  Hans  von  Buntzell, 
on  Whitsunday,  attacked,  with  a  drawn  sword,  the 
son  of  a  doctor  of  medicine,  "  a  youth  (as  all  agree) 
most  guiltless,"  and  wounded  him  in  the  arm, 
and  if  another  student  had  not  unexpectedly 
appeared,  "  would  without  doubt  have  killed  this 
excellent  boy."  The  criminal  was  pursued  to  the 
house  of  a  skinner  called  Meysen,  where  he  took  * 
refuge.  The  city  authorities,  inspired  by  the 
I 


130   LIFE  IN  THE  MEDIEVAL  UNIVERSITY 

Prince's  intervention,  offered  to  impose  three 
alternative  sentences,  and  the  University  was  asked 
to  say  whether  Hans  von  Buntzell  should  lose  one 
of  his  hands,  or  be  publicly  whipped  and  banished 
for  ten  years,  or  should  have  a  certain  stigma 
("  quod  esset  manus  amittendae  signum  '')  burned 
in  his  hand  and  be  banished.  The  University  re- 
plied that  it  was  for  the  city  to  carry  out  the  com- 
mands of  the  Prince,  and  declined  to  select  the 
penalty.  On  the  following  Monday  a  scaffold  was 
erected  in  the  market-place,  on  which  were  placed 
rods  and  a  knife  for  cutting  off  the  hand,  "  which 
apparatus  was  thought  by  the  skinners  to  be  much 
too  fierce  and  cruel,  and  a  concourse  began  from 
all  parts,  composed  not  of  skinners  alone,  but  of 
mechanics  of  every  kind,  interceding  with  the 
Council  for  the  criminal.''  The  pleadings  of  the 
multitude  gained  the  day,  and  all  the  preparations 
were  removed  from  the  market-place  amid  the 
murmurs  of  the  students.  After  supper,  three  senior 
members  of  the  skinners  came  to  the  Rector,  begging 
for  a  commutation  of  the  punishment,  and  offering 
to  beat  Hans  themselves  in  presence  of  representa- 
tives of  the  University  and  the  Town  Council,  with 
greater  ferocity  than  the  public  executioner  could 
do  if  he  were  to  whip  him  three  times  in  pubUc. 
The  Rector  replied  that  he  must  consult  the 
University,  and  the   proposal  was   thrown  out   in 


TOWN  AND  GOWN  131 

Congregation.  On  the  Saturday  after  the  Feast  of 
Trinity,  the  stigma  was  burned  on  the  criminars 
hand,  and  as  a  necessary  consequence  he  was 
banished. 

Town  riots  do  not  complete  the  tale  of  violence. 
There  were  struggles  with  Jews,  and  a  Jewish  row 
at  Oxford  in  1268  resulted  in  the  erection  of  a  cross 
with  the  following  inscription  : — 

Quis  meus  auctor  erat  ?     Judaei.     Quomodo  ?     Sumptu 
Quis  jussit  ?     Regnans.     Quo  procurante  ?     Magistri. 
Cur  ?     Cruce  pro  fracta  ligni.     Quo  tempore  ?     Festo 
Ascensus  Domini.     Quis  est  locus  ?     Hie  ubi  sisto. 

Clerks'  enemies  were  not  always  beyond  their  own 
household.  The  history  of  Paris,  the  earlier  history 
of  Oxford,  and  the  record  of  many  another  Univer- 
sity give  us  instances  of  mortal  combats  between 
the  Nations.  The  scholars  of  Paris,  in  the  thirteenth 
and  fourteenth  centuries,  had  to  face  the  mortal 
enmity  of  the  monks  of  the  Abbey  of  St  Germain, 
the  meadow^  in  front  of  which  was  claimed  by  the 
Faculty  of  Arts.  The  sight  of  Paris  students  walking 
or  playing  on  the  Pre-aux-clercs  had  much  the  same 
effect  upon  the  Abbot  and  monks  as  the  famous 
donkeys  had  upon  the  strong-minded  aunt  of 
David  Copperfield,  but  the  measures  they  took 
for  suppressing  the  nuisance  were  less  exactly 
proportioned  to  the  offence.  One  summer  day  in 
1278,  masters  and  scholars  went  for  recreation  to 


132    LIFE  IN  THE  MEDIEVAL  UNIVERSITY 

the  meadow,  when  the  Abbot  sent  out  armed 
servants  and  retainers  of  the  monastery  to  attack 
them.  They  came  shouting  "  Ad  mortem  cleri- 
corum/'  death  to  the  clerks,  "  verbis  crudehbus, 
ad  mortem  ad  mortem,  inhumaniter  pluries  repetitis/' 
A  "  famous  Bachelor  of  Arts  ''  and  other  clerks  were 
seriously  wounded  and  thrown  into  horrible  dun- 
geons ;  another  victim  lost  an  eye.  The  retreat  into 
the  city  was  cut  off,  and  fugitives  were  pursued  far 
into  the  country.  Blood  flowed  freely,  and  the 
scholars  who  escaped  returned  to  their  halls  with 
broken  heads  and  limbs  and  their  clothes  torn  to 
fragments.  Some  of  the  victims  died  of  their 
wounds,  and  the  monks  were  punished  by  King  and 
Pope,  the  Abbot  being  pensioned  off  and  the  Abbey 
compelled  to  endow  two  chaplains  to  say  masses 
for  scholars.  Forty  years  later  the  University 
had  again  to  appeal  to  the  Pope  to  avenge  assaults 
by  retainers  of  the  Abbey  upon  scholars  who  were 
fishing  in  the  moat  outside  the  Abbey  walls .  The 
monks,  of  course,  may  have  given  a  different  version 
of  the  incidents. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

SUBJECTS    OF   STUDY,   LECTURES   AND 
EXAMINATIONS 

The  student  of  a  medieval  University  was,  as  we 
have  seen,  expected  to  converse  in  Latin,  and  all 
instruction  was  given  in  that  language.  It  was 
therefore  essential  that,  before  entering  on  the 
University  curriculum,  he  should  have  a  competent 
knowledge  of  Latin.  College  founders  attempted 
to  secure  this  in  various  ways,  sometimes  by  an 
examination  {e.g.  at  the  College  of  Cornouaille,  at 
Paris,  no  one  was  admitted  a  bursar  until  he  was 
examined  and  found  to  be  able  to  read),  and  some- 
times by  making  provision  for  young  boys  to  be 
taught  by  a  master  of  grammar.  The  Founder  of 
New  College  met  the  difficulty  by  the  foundation  of 
Winchester  CoUege,  at  which  all  Wykehamists 
(except  the  earhest  members  of  New  CoUege)  were 
to  be  thoroughly  grounded  in  Latin.  It  was  more 
difficult  for  a  University  to  insist  upon  such  a  test, 
but,  in  1328,  the  University  of  Paris  had  ordered 
that  before  a  youth  was  admitted  to  the  privileges 
of  "  scholarity ''  or  studentship,  he  must  appear 
before  the  Rector  and  make  his  own  application  in 

133 


134  LIFE  IN  THE  MEDIEVAL  UNIVERSITY 

continuous  Latin,  without  any  French  words. 
Formulae  for  this  purpose  would,  doubtless,  soon 
be  invented  and  handed  down  by  tradition,  and  the 
precaution  cannot  have  been  of  much  practical 
value.  There  were  plenty  of  grammar  schools 
in  the  Middle  Ages,  and  a  clever  boy  was  likely  to 
find  a  patron  and  a  place  of  education  in  the  neigh- 
bourhood of  his  home.  The  grammar  schools  in 
University  towns  had  therefore  originally  no  special 
importance,  but  many  of  the  undergraduates  who 
came  up  at  thirteen  or  fourteen  required  some 
training  such  as  WilHam  of  Waynflete  provided  for 
his  younger  demies  in  connexion  with  the  Grammar 
School  which  he  attached  to  Magdalen,  or  such  as 
Walter  de  Merton  considered  desirable  when  he 
ordained  that  there  should  be  a  Master  of  Grammar 
in  his  College  to  teach  the  poor  boys,  and  that  their 
seniors  were  to  go  to  him  in  any  difficulty  without 
any  false  shame  ("  absque  rubore  '').  Many  univer- 
sities extended  certain  privileges  to  boys  studying 
grammar,  by  placing  their  names  on  matriculation 
rolls,  though  such  matriculation  was  not  part  of  the 
curriculum  for  a  degree.  Masters  in  Grammar  were 
frequently,  but  not  necessarily,  University  gradu- 
ates ;  at  Paris  there  were  grammar  mistresses  as 
well  as  grammar  masters.  The  connexion  between 
the  grammar  schools  and  the  University  was  ex- 
ceptionally close  at  Oxford  and  Cambridge,  where 


SUBJECTS  OF  STUDY  136 

degrees  in  grammar  came  to  be  given.  The  Univer- 
sity of  Oxford  early  legislated  for  "  inceptors  ''  who 
were  taking  degrees  in  grammar,  and  ordered  the 
grammar  masters  who  were  graduates  to  enrol,  pi'o 
forma,  the  names  of  pupils  of  non-graduates,  and  to 
compel  non-graduate  masters  to  obey  the  regulations 
of  the  University.  A  meeting  of  the  grammar 
masters  twice  a  term  for  discussions  about  their 
subject  and  the  method  of  teaching  it  was  also 
ordered  by  the  University,  which  ultimately  suc- 
ceeded in  wresting  the  right  of  hcensing  grammar 
masters  from  the  Archdeacon  or  other  official  to 
whom  it  naturally  belonged.  A  fourteenth-century 
code  of  statutes  for  the  Oxford  grammar  schools 
orders  the  appointment  of  two  Masters  of  Arts  to 
superintend  them,  and  gives  some  minute  instruc- 
tions about  the  teaching.  Grammar  masters  are 
to  set  verses  and  compositions,  to  be  brought  next 
day  for  correction  ;  and  they  are  to  be  specially 
careful  to  see  that  the  younger  boys  can  recognise 
the  different  parts  of  speech  and  parse  them  accur- 
ately. In  choosing  books  to  read  with  their  pupils, 
they  are  to  avoid  the  books  of  Ovid  "  de  Arte 
Amandi  ''  and  similar  works.  Boys  are  to  be  taught 
to  construe  in  French  as  well  as  in  English,  lest  they 
be  ignorant  of  the  French  tongue.  The  study  of 
French  was  not  confined  to  the  grammar  boys  :  the 
University    recognised    the    wisdom    of   learning    a 


136  LIFE  IN  THE  MEDIEVAL  UNIVERSITY 

language  necessary  for  composing  charters,  holding 
lay-courts,  and  pleading  in  the  English  fashion,  and 
lectures  in  French  were  permitted  at  any  hour 
that  did  not  interfere  with  the  regular  teaching  of 
Arts  subjects.  Such  lectures  were  under  the  con- 
trol of  the  superintendents  of  the  grammar  masters. 
The  degrees  which  Oxford  and  Cambridge  con- 
ferred in  Grammar  did  not  involve  residence  or 
entitle  the  recipients  to  a  vote  in  Convocation  ; 
but  the  conferment  was  accompanied  by  ceremonies 
which  were  almost  parodies  of  the  solemn  proceed- 
ings of  graduation  or  inception  in  a  recognised 
Faculty,  a  birch  taking  the  place  of  a  book  as  a 
symbol  of  the  power  and  authority  entrusted  to  the 
graduand.  A  sixteenth-century  Esquire  Bedel  of 
Cambridge  left,  for  the  benefit  of  his  successors, 
details  of  the  form  for  the  "  enteryng  of  a  Master 
in  Gramer.'^  The  "  Father "  of  the  Faculty  of 
Grammar  (at  Cambridge  the  mysterious  individual 
known  as  the  "  Master  of  Glomery  '')  brought  his 
"  sons  ''  to  St  Mary's  Church  for  eight  o'clock  mass. 
"  When  mass  is  done,  fyrst  shall  begynne  the  acte 
in  Gramer.  The  Father  shall  have  hys  sete  made 
before  the  Stage  for  Physyke  (one  of  the  platforms 
erected  in  the  church  for  doctors  of  the  different 
faculties,  etc.)  and  shall  sytte  alofte  under  the  stage 
for  Physyke.  The  Proctour  shall  say,  Incipiatis. 
When  the  Father  hath  argyude  as  shall  plese  the 


SUBJECTS  OF  STUDY  137 

Proctour,  the  Bedeyll  in  Arte  shall  bring  the  Master 
of  Gramer  to  the  Vyce-chancelar,  delyveryng  hym 
a  Palmer  wyth  a  Rodde,  whych  the  Vyce-chancelar 
shall  gyve  to  the  seyde  Master  in  Gramer,  and  so 
create  hym  Master.  Then  shall  the  Bedell  purvay 
for  every  master  in  Gramer  a  shrewde  Boy,  whom 
the  master  in  Gramer  shall  bete  openlye  in  the 
Scolys,  and  the  master  in  Gramer  shall  give  the 
Boy  a  Grote  for  Hys  Labour,  and  another  Grote 
to  hym  that  provydeth  the  Rode  and  the  Palmer 
&c.  de  singulis.  And  thus  endythe  the  Acte  in 
that  Facultye.''  We  know  of  the  existence  of 
similar  ceremonies  at  Oxford.  "  Had  the  ambition 
to  take  these  degrees  in  Grammar  been  widely 
diffused,''  says  Dr  Rashdall,  "  the  demand  for 
whipping  boys  might  have  pressed  rather  hardly 
upon  the  youth  of  Oxford  ;  but  very  few  of  them 
are  mentioned  in  the  University  Register.'' 

The  basis  of  the  medieval  curriculum  in  Arts  is  to 
be  found  in  the  Seven  Liberal  Arts  of  the  Dark  Ages, 
divided  into  the  Trivium  (Grammar,  Rhetoric  and 
Dialectic)  and  the  Quadrivium  (Music,  Arithmetic, 
Geometry  and  Astronomy).  The  Quadrivium  was 
of  comparatively  little  importance  ;  Geometry  and 
Music  received  small  attention ;  and  Arithmetic, 
and  Astronomy  were  at  first  chiefly  useful  for 
finding  the  date  of  Easter  ;  but  the  introduction  of 
mathematical    learning    from    Arabian    sources    in 


138  LIFE  m  THE  MEDIEVAL  UNIVERSITY 

the  thirteenth  century  greatly  increased  the  scope 
of  Geometry  and  Arithmetic,  and  added  the  study 
of  Algebra. 

The  Grammar  taught  in  the  universities  assumed 
a  knowledge  of  such  a  text-book  as  that  of  Alexander 
de  Villa  Dei,  and  consisted  of  an  analysis  of  the 
systems  of  popular  grammarians,  based  on  the 
section  De  harbarismo  in  the  Ars  Grammatica  of 
^Elius  Donatus,  a  fourth-century  grammarian,  whose 
work  became  universally  used  throughout  Europe. 
Latin  poets  were  read  in  the  grammar  schools, 
and  served  for  grammatical  and  philological  ex- 
positions in  the  universities,  and  the  study  of 
Rhetoric  depended  largely  on  the  treatises  of 
Cicero.  The  "  Dialectic  ''  of  the  Trivium  was  the 
real  interest  of  the  medieval  student  among  the 
ancient  seven  subjects,  but  the  curriculum  in  Arts 
came  to  include  also  the  three  Philosophies,  Physical, 
Moral,  and  Metaphysical.  The  arms  of  the  Univer- 
sity of  Oxford  consist  of  a  book  with  seven  clasps 
surrounded  by  three  crowns,  the  clasps  representing 
the  seven  Liberal  Arts  and  the  crowns  the  three 
Philosophies.  The  universities  were  schools  of 
philosophy,  mental  and  physical,  and  the  attention 
of  students  in  Arts  was  chiefly  directed  to  the  logic, 
metaphysics,  physics,  and  ethics  of  Aristotle.  Up 
to  the  twelfth  century,  Aristotle  was  known  only 
through  the  translations  into  Latin  of  the  sections 


SUBJECTS  OF  STUDY  139 

of  the  Organon,  entitled  De  Interpretatione  and 
Categoriae,  and  through  the  logical  works  of 
Boethius.  In  the  twelfth  and  thirteenth  centuries 
the  range  of  medieval  studies  was  greatly  enlarged 
by  the  introduction  of  other  works  of  Aristotle  from 
translations  partly  from  the  Arabic  and  partly 
direct  from  the  Greek.  The  conservatism  of  the 
University  of  Paris  at  first  forbade  the  study  of 
the  new  Aristotle,  but  it  soon  became  universal 
in  the  medieval  universities.  In  addition  to  the 
works  of  Aristotle,  as  they  were  known  in  the 
Middle  Ages,  medieval  students  read  such  books 
as  Porphyry's  Isagcge,  or  Introduction  to  Aristotle ; 
the  criticism  of  Aristotle's  Categories,  by  Gilbert  de  la 
Porree,  known  as  the  Sex  Principia ;  the  Summulae 
Logicales,  a  semi-grammatical,  semi-logical  treatise 
by  Petrus  Hispanus  (Pope  John  XXI.) ;  the  Parva 
Logicalia  of  MarsiHus  of  Inghen ;  the  Labyrinihus 
and  Grecismus  of  Eberhard;  the  Scriptural  com- 
mentaries of  Nicolaus  de  Lyra ;  the  Tractatus  de 
Sphaera,  an  astronomical  work  by  a  thirteenth- 
century  Scotsman,  John  Holyw^ood  (Joannes  de 
Sacro  Bosco)  ;  and  they  also  studied  Priscian, 
Donatus,  Boethius,  Euclid,  and  Ptolemy.  In  1431 
the  Nova  Rhetor ica  of  Cicero,  the  Metamorphoses 
of  Ovid,  and  the  works  of  Virgil  were  prescribed  at 
Oxford  -as  alternatives  to  the  fourth  book  of  the 
Topica  of  Boethius.     By  the  end  of  the  century 


140   LIFE  IN  THE  MEDIEVAL  UNIVERSITY 

Humanism  had  found  a  place  in  the  universities, 
and  sixteenth  -  century  colleges  at  Oxford  and 
Cambridge  provided  for  the  study  of  the  Uteratures 
of  Greece  and  Rome.  In  Scotland  the  medieval 
teaching  of  Aristotle  reigned  supreme  in  all  its  three 
universities  until  the  appointment  of  Andrew 
Melville  as  Principal  at  Glasgow  in  1574,  and  in 
1580  he  had  some  difficulty  in  persuading  the 
masters  at  St  Andrews  to  "  peruse  Aristotle  in  his 
ain  language/' 

Lectures  were  either  "  ordinary  ''  or  "  cursory/' 
a  distinction  which,  as  Dr  Rashdall  has  shown, 
corresponded  to  the  "  ordinary "  and  "  extra- 
ordinary "  lectures  at  Bologna.  The  ordinary 
lectures  were  the  statutable  exercises  appointed  by 
the  Faculty,  and  delivered  by  its  properly  accredited 
teachers  in  the  hours  of  the  morning,  which  were 
sacred  to  the  prelections  of  the  masters.  Cursory 
lectures  were  delivered  in  the  afternoon,  frequently 
by  bachelors ;  but  as  College  teaching  became 
more  important  than  the  lectures  given  in  the 
Schools,  the  distinction  gradually  disappeared. 
Ordinary  lectures  were  dehvered  "  solemniter  "  and 
involved  a  slow  and  methodical  analysis  of  the  book. 
The  statutes  of  Vienna  prescribe  that  no  master 
shall  read  more  than  one  chapter  of  the  text 
"  ante  quaestionem  vel  etiam  quaestione  expedita.'' 
Various  references  in  College  and  University  statutes 


SUBJECTS  OF  STUDY  141 

show  that  the  cursory  lecture  was  not  regarded  as 
the  full  equivalent  of  an  ordinary  lecture.  At 
Oxford,  attendance  on  a  lecture  on  the  books  or  any 
book  of  the  Metaphysics,  or  on  the  Physics,  or  the 
Ethics,  was  not  to  count  for  a  degree,  except  in  the 
case  of  a  book  largely  dealing  with  the  opinions 
of  the  ancients.  The  third  and  fourth  books  of  the 
Metaphysics  were  excepted  from  the  rule,  "  they 
being  usually  read  cursorily,  that  the  ordinary 
reading  of  the  other  books  might  proceed  more 
rapidly/'  The  cursory  lecture  was  clearly  beloved 
of  the  pupil,  for  Oxford  grammar  masters  are 
reproved  for  lecturing  "  cursorie ""  instead  of 
"ordinarie''  for  the  sake  of  gain;  and  at  Vienna, 
the  tariff  for  cursory  lectures  is  double  that  for 
ordinary  lectures.  At  Paris  the  books  of  Aristotle 
de  Dialectica  were  to  be  read  "  ordinarie  et  non  ad 
cursum,'"  and  students  of  medicine  had  to  read 
certain  books  "  semel  ordinarie,  bis  cursorie. ""  The 
statutes  of  Heidelberg  contrast  "  cursorie ''  with 
"  extense.'"  In  the  Faculty  of  Canon  Law  there 
was  an  additional  distinction,  the  ordinary  lecture 
being  generally  restricted  to  the  Decretum ;  at 
Oxford,  the  book  of  Decretals  is  to  be  read  at  the 
morning  hours  at  which  the  doctors  of  law  are  wont 
to  deUver  ordinary  lectures,  and  at  Vienna  the 
doctors  are  forbidden  to  read  anything  but  the 
Decretals    in    the    morning    at    ordinary    lectures. 


142   LIFE  IN  THE  MEDIEVAL  UNIVERSITY 

The  instructions  given  to  the  Vienna  doctors  of 
law  iUustrate  the  thoroughness  of  the  medieval 
lecture  in  all  faculties.  They  are  first  to  state  the 
case  carefully,  then  to  read  the  text,  then  to  re- 
state the  case,  then  to  remark  on  "  notabiHa,''  and 
then  to  discuss  questions  arising  out  of  the  subject, 
and  finally,  to  deal  with  the  Glosses.  So,  at  Oxford, 
the  Masters  in  Arts  are  to  read  the  books  on  logic 
and  the  philosophies  "  rite,''  with  the  necessary 
and  adequate  exposition  of  the  text,  and  with 
questions  and  arguments  pertinent  to  the  subject- 
matter. 

A  problem,  still  unsolved,  about  the  methods  of 
lecturing  disturbed  the  minds  of  the  Parisian 
masters.  Were  they  to  dictate  lectures  or  to  speak 
so  fast  that  their  pupils  could  not  commit  their 
words  to  writing  ?  From  the  standpoint  of  teachersN 
who  delivered  frequent  lectures,  all  of  the  same  type, 
and  on  a  few  set  books,  it  was  probably  desirable 
that  there  should  not  be  opportunities  of  possessing 
such  copies  of  a  professor's  lectures  as  used  to  circu- 
late, not  many  years  ago,  in  Scottish  and  in  German 
universities.  In  1229  the  Faculty  of  Arts  at  Paris 
made  a  statute  on  the  methods  of  lecturing.  It 
explains  that  there  are  two  ways  of  reading  books 
in  the  liberal  arts.  The  masters  of  philosoph}^  may 
deliver  their  expositions  from  their  chairs  so  rapidly 
that,  although  the  minds  of  their  audience  may 


SUBJECTS  OF  STUDY  143 

grasp  their  meaning,  their  hands  cannot  write  it 
down.  This,  they  say,  was  the  custom  in  other 
faculties.  The  other  way  is  to  speak  so  slowly 
that  their  hearers  can  take  down  what  they  say. 
On  mature  reflection,  the  Faculty  has  decided  that 
"—the  former  is  the  better  way,  and  henceforth  in  any 
lecture,  ordinary  or  cursory,  or  in  any  disputation 
or  other  manner  of  teaching,  the  master  is  to  speak 
as  in  dehvering  a  speech,  and  as  if  no  one  were 
writing  in  his  presence.  A  lecturer  who  breaks 
the  new  rule  is  to  be  suspended  for  a  year,  and  if 
the  students  showed  their  dislike  to  it,  by  shouting, 
hissing,  groaning,  or  throwing  stones,  they  were  to 
be  sent  down  for  a  year.  More  than  two  hundred 
years  later,  in  1452,  the  statute  was  rescinded  by 
Cardinal  Estoutville,  but  it  was  probably  never 
operative.  Estoutville  permitted  either  method  of 
lecturing,  and  contented  himself  with  forbidding 
lecturers  to  use  questions  and  lectures  which  were 
not  of  their  own  composition,  or  to  deliver  their 
lectures  (however  good)  to  be  read  by  one  of  their 
scholars  as  a  deputy.  He  instructs  the  masters  to 
lecture  regularly  according  to  the  statutes  and  to  ex- 
plain the  text  of  Aristotle,  "  depuncto  in  punctum," 
and,  holding  that  fear  and  reverence  are  the  life- 
blood  of  scholastic  discipline,  he  repeats  an  in- 
junction which  we  find  in  1336,  that  the  students 
in  Arts  are  to  sit  not  on  benches  or  raised  seats,  but 


144  LIFE  IN  THE  MEDIEVAL  UNIVERSITY 

on  the  floor,  "  ut  occasio  superbiae  a  juvenibus 
secludatur/'  The  name  of  the  street  in  which 
lectures  were  given,  Vicus  Stramineus,  is  said  to 
have  been  derived  from  the  straw  on  which  the 
students  sat.  The  question  whether  lectures  should 
be  committed  to  writing  or  not,  troubled  the  masters 
of  other  universities  besides  Paris,  and  the  statutes 
of  the  College  de  Verdale  at  Toulouse  accept,  in 
1337,  the  view  taken  at  Paris  a  hundred  years 
earlier.  Since  study  is  a  vehement  application  of 
the  mind,  and  requires  the  whole  man,  the  scholars 
are  forbidden  to  fatigue  themselves  with  too  many 
lectures — not  more  than  two  or  three  a  day — and 
in  lecture  they  are  not  to  take  down  the  lecturer's 
words,  nor,  trusting  in  writings  of  this  kind,  to  blunt 
their  "  proprium  intellectum.^'  In  the  Schools,  they 
must  not  use  "  incausta ''  or  pencils  except  for 
correcting  a  book,  etc.  And  what  they  have  been 
able  to  retain  in  their  memory  they  must  meditate 
on  without  delay. 

The  insistence  on  meditation  was  a  useful  educa- 
tional method,  but  as  teaching  became  more 
organised,  the  student  was  not  left  without  guidance 
in  his  meditations.  The  help  which  he  received 
outside  lectures  was  given  in  Repetitions  or  Resump- 
tions. The  procedure  at  Repetitions  may  be  illus- 
trated from  the  statutes  of  the  College  of  Dainville 
at  Paris  :    "  We  ordain  that  all  bursars  in  grammar 


SUBJECTS  OF  STUDY  146 

and  philosophy  speak  the  Latin  tongue,  and  that 
those  who  hear  the  same  book  ordinarily  and  cur- 
sorily shall  attend  one  and  the  same  master  (namely, 
one  whom  the  master  [of  the  College]  assigns  to 
them),  and  after  the  lecture  they  shall  return  home 
and  meet  in  one  place  to  repeat  the  lecture.  One 
after  another  shall  repeat  the  whole  lecture,  so  that 
each  of  them  may  know  it  well,  and  the  less  advanced 
shall  be  bound  daily  to  repeat  the  lectures  to  the 
more  proficient/'  A  later  code  of  the  same  College 
provides  that  "  All  who  study  humane  letters  shall, 
on  every  day  of  the  schools  read  in  the  morning  a 
composition,  that  is  a  speech  in  Latin,  Greek  or  the 
vernacular,  to  their  master,  being  prepared  to 
expound  the  writer  or  historian  who  is  being  read 
in  daily  lecture  in  their  schools.  At  the  end  of 
the  week,  that  is  on  Friday  or  Saturday,  they  shall 
show  up  to  their  master  a  resume  of  all  the  lectures 
they  have  learned  that  week,  and  every  day  before 
they  go  to  the  schools  they  shall  be  bound  to  make 
repetitions  to  one  of  the  philosophers  or  of  the 
theologians  whom  the  [College]  master  shall  choose 
for  this  work.''  At  Lou  vain,  the  time  between 
5  A.M.  and  the  first  lecture  (about  seven)  was  spent 
in  studying  the  lesson  that  the  students  might 
better  understand  the  lecture  ;  after  hearing  it, 
they  returned  to  their  own  rooms  to  revise  it  and 
commit  it  to  memory.     After  dinner,  their  books 

K 


146  LIFE  IN  THE  MEDIEVAL  UNIVERSITY 

were  placed  on  a  table,  and  all  the  scholars  of  one 
Faculty  repeated  their  lesson  and  answered  questions. 
A  similar  performance  took  place  in  the  two  hours 
before  supper.  After  supper,  the  tutor  treated 
them  for  haK  an  hour  to  a  "jocum  honestum,'" 
and  before  sending  them  to  bed  gave  them  a  light 
and  pleasant  disputation.  The  disputation  was  a 
preparation  for  the  disputations  which  formed  part 
of  what  we  should  now  term  the  degree  examina- 
tions. A  thesis  was  propounded,  attacked,  and 
defended  ("  impugned  and  propugned  '')  with  the 
proper  forms  of  syllogistic  reasoning. 

The  teaching,  both  in  lectures  and  in  disputations, 
was  originally  University  teaching,  and  the  younger 
Masters  of  Arts,  the  "  necessary  regents,''  were 
bound  to  stay  up  for  some  years  and  lecture  in  the 
Schools.  They  were  paid  by  their  scholars,  and  the 
original  meaning  of  the  word  "  Collections,''  still 
in  frequent  use  at  Oxford,  is  traditionally  supposed 
to  be  found  in  the  payments  made  for  lectures  at 
the  end  of  each  term.  Thus,  at  Oxford,  a  student 
paid  threepence  a  term  (one  shilling  a  year)  to  his 
regent  for  lectures  in  Logic,  and  fourpence  a  term 
for  lectures  in  Natural  Philosophy.  The  system 
was  not  a  satisfactory  one,  and  alike  in  Paris,  in 
Oxford,  and  in  Cambridge,  it  succumbed  to  the 
growth  of  College  teaching.  The  Head  of  a  Parisian 
College,  from  the  first,  superintended  the  studies 


SUBJECTS  OF  STUDY  147 

of  the  scholars,  and,  although  this  duty  was  not 
required  of  an  Oxford  or  Cambridge  Head,  provision 
was  gradually  made  in  the  statutes  of  EngHsh 
colleges  for  the  instruction  of  the  junior  members 
by  their  seniors.  The  first  important  step  in  this 
direction  was  taken  by  William  of  Wykeham,  who 
ordered  special  payment  to  be  made  by  the  College 
to  Fellows  who  undertook  the  tuition  of  the  younger 
Fellows.  His  example  was  followed  in  this,  as  in 
other  matters,  by  subsequent  founders  both  at 
Oxford  and  at  Cambridge,  and  gradually  University 
teaching  was,  in  the  Faculty  of  Arts,  ahnost  entirely 
superseded  by  College  tuition.  In  other  universities, 
lectures  continued  to  be  given  by  University  officials. 
The  medieval  undergraduates  had  a  tendency  to 
"  rag  ''  in  lectures,  a  tradition  which  is  almost  un- 
known at  Oxford  and  Cambridge,  but  which  per- 
sisted till  quite  recent  times  in  the  Scottish  univer- 
sities. Prohibitions  of  noise  and  disturbance  in 
lecture- rooms  abound  in  all  statutes.  At  Vienna jb/ 
students  in  Arts  are  exhorted  to  behave  like  young 
ladies  (more  virginum)  and  to  refrain  from  laughter, 
murmurs,  and  hisses,  and  from  tearing  down  the 
schedules  in  which  the  masters  give  notice  of  their 
lectures.  At  Prague,  also,  the  conduc  of  young 
ladies  was  held  up  as  a  model  for  the  student  at 
lecture,  and,  at  Angers,  students  who  hissed  in 
contempt  of  a  doctor  were  to  be  expelled. 


148  LIFE  IN  THE  MEDIEVAL  UNIVERSITY 

The  career  of  a  student  was  divided  into  two  parts 
by  his  "  Determination/'  a  ceremony  which  is  the 
origin  of  the  Bachelor's  degree.  At  Paris,  where,  at 
all  events  in  the  earlier  period  of  its  history,  examina- 
tions were  real,  the  "  Determination  "  was  preceded 
by  "  Responsions,''  and  no  candidate  was  admitted 
to  determine  until  he  had  satisfied  a  Regent  Master 
in  the  Schools,  in  public,  "  de  Questione  respondens/' 
The  determination  itself  Avas  a  public  disputation, 
after  which  the  determiner  might  wear  the  bachelor's 
"  cappa  "  and  lecture  on  the  Organon.  He  continued 
his  attendance  on  the  lectures  in  the  Schools  up  to 
the  time  of  his  "  Inception  "  as  a  m^aster.  The  In- 
ception was  preceded  by  an  examination  for  licence 
and  by  a  disputation  known  as  the  Quodlibetica, 
at  which,  the  subject  was  chosen  by  the  candidate. 
The  bachelor  who  was  successful  in  obtaining  the 
Chancellor's  Hcence  proceeded  to  the  ceremony  of 
Inception,  and  received  his  master's  hiretta. 

The  stringency  of  examinations  varied  in  different 
universities  and  at  different  times.  The  propor- 
tion of  successful  candidates  seems  to  have  been 
everywhere  very  large,  and  in  some  universities 
rejection  must  have  been  almost  unknown.  We 
do  find  references  to  disappointed  candidates,  e.g. 
at  Caen,  where  medical  students  who  have  been 
*'  ploughed  "  have  to  take  an  oath  not  to  bring 
"  malum  vel  damnum  "  upon  the  examiners.     But 


SUBJECTS  OF  STUDY  149 

even  at  Lou  vain,  where  the  examination  system 
was  fully  developed  in  the  Middle  Ages,  and  where 
there  were  class  Ksts  in  the  fifteenth  century  (the 
classes  bemg  distinguished  as  Eigorosi,  Transibiles, 
and  Gratiosi),  failure  was  regarded  as  an  exceptional 
event  ("si  autem,  quod  absit,  ahqui  inveniantur 
simpHciter  gratiosi  seu  refutabiles,  erunt  de  quarto 
ordine ").  The  regulations  for  examinations  at 
Louvain  prescribe  that  the  examiners  are  not  to  ask 
disturbing  questions  ("  animo  turbandi  aut  confun- 
dendi  promo vendos  '')  and  forbid  unfair  treatment 
of  pupils  of  particular  masters  and  frivolous  or 
useless  questions  ;  although  at  his  Quodhbeticum, 
the  bachelor  might  indulge  in  "  jocosas  questiones 
ad  auditorii  recreationem/'  )Jhe_  element  of  dis- 
play impUed  in  the  last  quotation  wasjoeyer  abseixt 
from  medieval  examinations,  and  at  Oxford,  there 
seems  to  have  been  httle  besides  this  ceremonial 
element.  A  candidate  had  to  prove  that  he  had 
compHed  with  the  regulations  about  attendance  at 
lectures,  etc.,  and  to  obtain  evidence  of  fitness 
from  a  number  of  masters.  A  bachelor  had  to 
dispute  several  times  with  a  master,  and  these 
disputations,  which  were  held  at  the  Augustinian 
Convent,  came  to  be  known  as  "  doing  Austins." 
The  medieval  system,  as  it  Ungered  at  Oxford  in 
the  close  of  the  eighteenth  century,  is  thus  described 
by  Vicesimus  Knox  : — 


160  LIFE  IN  THE  MEDIEVAL  UNIVERSITY 

"  The  youth  whose  heart  pants  for  the  honour 
of  a  Bachelor  of  Arts  degree  must  wait  patiently 
till  near  four  years  have  revolved.  .  .  .  He  is 
obliged  during  this  period,  once  to  oppose  and 
once  to  respond.  .  .  .  This  opposing  and  re- 
sponding is  termed,  in  the  cant  of  the  place,  doing 
generals.  Two  boys  or  men,  as  they  call  them- 
selves, agree  to  do  generals  together.  The  first 
step  in  this  mighty  work  is  to  procure  arguments. 
These  are  always  handed  down,  from  generation 
to  generation,  on  long  sUps  of  paper,  and  consist 
of  fooHsh  syllogisms  on  foolish  subjects,  of  the 
foundation  or  significance  of  which  the  respondent 
and  opponent  seldom  know  more  than  an  infant 
in  swaddling  cloaths.  The  next  step  Is  to  go  for 
a  liceat  to  one  of  the  petty  officers,  called  the 
Regent-Master  of  the  Schools,  who  subscribes  his 
name  to  the  questions  and  receives  sixpence  as 
his  fee.  When  the  important  day  arrives,  the 
two  doughty  disputants  go  into  a  large  dusty 
room,  full  of  dirt  and  cobwebs.  .  .  .  Here  they 
sit  in  mean  desks,  opposite  to  each  other  from 
one  o'clock  till  three.  Not  once  in  a  hundred 
times  does  any  officer  enter  ;  and,  if  he  does,  he 
hears  a  syllogism  or  two,  and  then  makes  a  bow, 
and  departs,  as  he  came  and  remained,  in  solemn 
silence.  The  disputants  then  return  to  the 
amusement  of  cutting  the  desks,  carving  their 
names,  or  reading  Sterne's  Sentimental  Journey, 
or  some  other  edifying  novel.  When  the  exercise 
is  duly  performed  by  both  parties,  they  have  a 
right  to  the  title  and  insignia  of  Sophs  :    but  not 


SUBJECTS  OF  STUDY  161 

before  they  have  been  formally  created  by  one 
of  the  regent-masters,  before  whom  they  kneel, 
while  he  lays  a  volume  of  Aristotle's  works  on 
their  heads,  and  puts  on  a  hood,  a  piece  of  black 
crape,  hanging  from  their  necks,  and  down  to 
their  heels.  .  .  .  There  remain  only  one  or  two 
trifling  forms,  and  another  disputation  almost 
exactly  similar  to  doing  generals,  but  called 
answering  under  bachelor  previous  to  the  awful 
examination.  Every  candidate  is  obliged  to  be 
examined  in  the  whole  circle  of  the  sciences  by 
three  masters  of  arts  of  his  own  choice.  .  .  . 
Schemes,  as  they  are  called,  or  little  books  con- 
taining forty  or  fifty  questions  on  each  science, 
are  handed  down  from  age  to  age,  from  one  to 
another.  The  candidate  employs  three  or  four 
days  in  learning  these  by  heart,  and  the  examiners, 
having  done  the  same  before  him,  know  what 
questions  to  ask,  and  so  all  goes  on  smoothly. 
When  the  candidate  has  displayed  his  universal 
knowledge  of  the  sciences,  he  is  to  display  his 
skill  in  philology.  One  of  the  masters  there- 
fore asks  him  to  construe  a  passage  in  some  Greek 
or  Latin  classic,  which  he  does  with  no  interrup- 
tion, just  as  he  pleases,  and  as  well  as  he  can. 
The  statutes  next  require  that  he  should  translate 
famihar  EngHsh  phrases  into  Latin.  And  now 
is  the  time  when  the  masters  show  their  wit  and 
jocularity.  .  .  .  This  familiarity,  however, 
only  takes  place  when  the  examiners  are  pot- 
companions  of  the  candidate,  which  indeed  is 
usually,  the  case  ;   for  it  is  reckoned  good  manage- 


152   LIFE  IN  THE  MEDIEVAL  UNIVERSITY 

ment  to  get  acquainted  with  two  or  three  jolly 
young  masters  of  arts,  and  supply  them  well  with 
port  previously  to  the  examination.  If  the  vice- 
chancellor  and  proctors  happen  to  enter  the 
school,  a  very  uncommon  event,  then  a  little 
solemnity  is  put  on.  .  .  .As  neither  the  officer, 
nor  anyone  else,  usually  enters  the  room  (for  it  is 
reckoned  very  ungenteel),  the  examiners  and  the 
candidates  often  converse  on  the  last  drinking- 
bout,  or  on  horses,  or  read  the  newspapers  or  a 
novel.'' 


The  supply  of  port  was  the  eighteenth-century 
reUc  of  the  feasts  which  used  to  accompany 
Determination  and  Inception,  and  with  which  so 
many  sumptuary  regulations  of  colleges  and  univer- 
sities are  concerned.  There  is  a  reference  to  a 
Determining  Feast  in  the  Past  on  Letters,  in  which 
the  ill-fated  Walter  Paston,  writing  in  the  summer 
of  1479,  a  few  weeks  before  his  premature  death, 
says  to  his  brother  :  "  And  yf  ye  wyl  know  what 
day  I  was  mead  Baschyler,  I  was  maad  on  Fryday 
was  sevynyth,  and  I  mad  my  fest  on  the  Munday 
after.  I  was  promysyd  venyson  ageyn  my  fest  of 
my  Lady  Harcort,  and  of  a  noder  man  to,  but  I 
was  desevyd  of  both  ;  but  my  gestes  hewld  them 
plesyd  with  such  mete  as  they  had,  blyssyd  be  God. 
Hoo  have  yeo  in  Hys  keeping.  Wretyn  at  Oxon, 
on  the  Wedenys  day  next  after  Seynt  Peter/' 


SUBJECTS  OF  STUDY  153 

A  few  glimpses  of  the  life  of  this  fifteenth-century 
Oxonian  may  conclude  our  survey.  Walter  Paston 
had  been  sent  to  Oxford  in  1473,  under  the  charge 
of  a  priest  called  James  Gloys.  His  mother  did  not 
wish  him  to  associate  too  closely  with  the  son  of 
their  neighbour,  Thomas  Holler.  "  I  wold,''  she 
says,  "  Walter  schuld  be  copilet  with  a  better  than 
Holler  son  is  .  .  .  howe  be  it  I  wold  not  that  he 
schuld  make  never  the  lesse  of  hym,  by  cause  he  is 
his  contre  man  and  neghbour."  The  boy  was 
instructed  to  "  doo  welle,  lerne  well,  and  be  of  good 
rewle  and  disposycion,''  and  Gloys  was  asked  to 
"  bydde  hym  that  he  be  not  to  hasty  of  takyng  of 
orderes  that  schuld  bynd  him.''  To  take  Orders 
under  twenty- three  years  of  age  might  lead,  in 
Margaret  Paston's  opinion,  to  repentance  at  leisure, 
and  "  I  will  love  hym  better  to  be  a  good  secular 
man  than  to  be  a  lewit  priest."  We  next  hear  of 
Walter  in  May  1478  when  he  writes  to  his  mother 
recommending  himself  to  her  "  good  moderchypp," 
and  asking  for  money.  He  has  received  £5,  16s.  6d., 
and  his  expenses  amount  to  £6,  5s.  5d.  "  That  comth 
over  the  reseytys  in  my  exspenses  I  have  borrowed 
of  Master  Edmund  and  yt  draweth  to  8  shillings." 
He  might  have  applied  for  a  loan  to  one  of  the 
"  chests "  which  benevolent  donors  had  founded 
for  such  emergencies,  depositing  some  article  of 
value,  and  receiving  a  temporary  loan  :   but  he  pre- 


154   LIFE  m  THE  MEDIEVAL  UNIVERSITY 

ferred  to  borrow  from  his  new  tutor,  Edmund  Alyard. 
By  March  1479,  Alyard  was  able  to  reassure  the 
anxious  mother  about  her  boy's  choice  of  a  career  ; 
he  was  to  go  to  law,  taking  his  Bachelor's  degree  in 
Arts  at  Midsummer.  His  brother,  Sir  John,  who 
was  staying  at  the  George  at  Paul's  Wharf  in  London, 
intended  to  be  present  at  the  ceremony,  but  his 
letter  miscarried  :  "  Martin  Brown  had  that  same 
tyme  mysch  mony  in  a  bage,  so  that  he  durst  not 
bryng  yt  with  hym,  and  that  same  letter  was  in  that 
same  bage,  and  he  had  forgete  to  take  owt  the 
letter,  and  he  sent  all  togeder  by  London,  so  that 
yt  was  the  next  day  after  that  I  was  maad  Bachyler 
or  than  the  letter  cam,  and  so  the  fawt  was  not  in 
me.'^  This  is  the  last  we  hear  of  Walter  Paston. 
On  his  way  home,  on  the  18th  August  1479,  he  died 
at  Norwich,  after  a  short  illness.  He  left  a  number 
of  "  togae  "  to  his  Oxford  friends,  including  Robert 
Holler,  the  son  of  his  Norfolk  neighbour,  to  whom 
he  also  bequeathed  "  unum  pulvinar  vocatum  le 
holstar."  The  rest  of  his  Oxford  goods  he  left  to 
Alyard,  but  his  sheep  and  his  lands  to  his  own 
family.  The  cost  of  his  illness  and  funeral  amounted 
to  about  thirty  shilUngs.  No  books  are  mentioned 
in  the  will ;  possibly  they  were  sold  for  his  inception 
feast,  or  he  may  never  have  possessed  any.  As  a 
junior  student,  he  would  not  have  been  allowed 
to  use  the  great  library  which  Humphrey  of  Glou- 


SUBJECTS  OF  STUDY  155 

cester  had  presented  to  the  University  ;  but  there 
were  smaller  libraries  to  which  he  might  have 
access,  for  books  were  sometimes  chained  up 
in  St  Mary's  Church  that  scholars  might  read 
them. 


/ 


APPENDIX 

My  attention  has  been  called  (too  late  for  a  reference  in 
the  text)  to  a  medieval  Latin  poem  giving  a  gloomy- 
account  of  student  life  in  Paris  in  the  twelfth  century. 
The  verses,  which  have  been  printed  in  the  American  Journal 
of  Philology  (vol.  xi.  p.  80),  insist  upon  the  hardships  of  the 
student's  life,  and  contrast  his  miserable  condition  with 
the  happier  lot  of  the  citizens  of  Paris.  For  him  there  is 
no  rejoicing  in  the  days  of  his  youth,  and  no  hope  even  of 
a  competence  in  the  future.  His  lodgings  are  wretched 
and  neglected ;  his  dress  is  miserable,  and  his  appearance 
slovenly.  His  food  consists  of  peas,  beans,  and  cabbage, 
and 

"  libido 

Mensse  nulla  venit  nisi  quod  sale  sparsa  rigorem 

Esca  parum  flectit." 

His  bed  is  a  hard  mattress  stretched  on  the  floor,  and 
sleep  brings  him  only  a  meagre  respite  from  the  toils  of 
the  day : — 

"  Sed  in  ilia  pace  soporis 
Pacis  eget  studii  labor  insopitus,  et  ipso 
Cura  vigil  somno,  libros  operamque  ministrat 
Excitse  somnus  auimse,  nee  prima  sopori 
Anxietas  cedit,  sed  quae  vigilaverat  ante 
Sollicitudo  redit,  et  major  summa  laboris 
Curarum  studiis  in  somnibus  obicit  Hydram." 

15T 


158  LIFE  IN  THE  MEDIEVAL  UNIVERSITY 

In  the  early  hours  of  the  morning  he  goes  to  his  lectures, 
and  the  whole  of  his  day  is  given  to  study.  The  descrip- 
tion of  the  student  at  lecture  is  interesting  : — 

"  Aure  et  mente  bibit  et  verba  cadentia  promo 
Promptus  utroque  levat,  oculique  et  mentis  in  illo 
Fixa  vigilque  manet  acies  aurisque  maritat 
Pronuba  dilectam  cupida  cum  mente  Mincrvara." 


SELECTED  BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Savigny :    Geschichte   der    romischen    Rechts    im    Mittelalter. 
(Heidelberg,  1834.) 
^i— Sir  William  Hamilton  :  Discussions  on  Philosophy  and  Litera- 
ture, Education,  and  University  Reform.     (London,  1852.) 
Denifle  :  Die  Entstehung  der  Universitaten  des  Mittelalters  bis 
1400.     (Berlin,  1885.) 
>  <— ^ashdall :    The  Universities  of  Europe  in   the   Middle  Ages/ 
(Oiford,  1895.) 
Kaufmann  :  Geschichte  der  Deutschen  Universitaten.      (Stutt- 
gart, 1888.)         _      _  _  ; 
"-rArticle  on  Universities  in  the  EncydopcecUa  Britannica. 
Archiv  fur  Lit.  u.  Kirchengeschichte  des  Mittelalters.      Jurist 
"Statutes  of  Padua  (1331)  in  vol.  vi.  ;  Salamanca  documents 
in  vol.  V. 
Malagola  :    Statuti  della  universita   e  dei  collegi  dello  studio 

bolognese.     (Bologna,  1888.) 
Denitle  and  Chatelain  :  Chartularium  Universitatis  Parisiensis. 
(Paris,  1889-1897.) 
(Many  of  the  statutes  of  the  Colleges  of  Paris  will  be  found 
scattered  through  Felibieu  :  Histoire  de  la  Ville  de  Paris.     Paris, 
1725.) 

Antony  Wbod  :  History  and  Antiquities  of  the  University  of 
Oxford.     (Ed.  Gutch.     Oxford,  1792-6.) 

History  and  Antiquities  of  the  Colleges  and  Halls  in  the 

University  of  Oxford.     (Ed.  Gutch.     Oxford,  1786.) 
Anstey  :  Munimenta  Academica.     (Rolls  Series,  1868.) 
\/ Statutes  of  the  Colleges  of  Oxford.     (London,  1853.) 
Clark  :  The  Cglleges  of  Oxford.     (London,  1892.) 

(The  best  account  of  Oxford  will  be  found'  in  vol.  11.,  Part  ii., 
■    of  Dr  Rashdall's  "  Universities  of  Europe."     There  are  two  short 

169 


160  LIFE  IN  THE  MEDIEVAL  UNIVERSITY 

histories  of  the  University  by  Maxwell  Lyte  (London,  1886)  and 

Brodrick  (London,  1886.).) 

Documents  relating  to  the  University  and  Colleges  of  Cambridge. 

(London,  1852.)    • 
Mullinger  :  The  University  of  Cambridge  from  the  Earliest  Times 

to  the  Koyal  Injunctions  of  1535.     (Cambridge,  1873.) 
In  two  subsequent  volumes  Mr  Mullinger  has  continued  the 
narrative  to  the  latter  half  of  the  seventeenth  century,  and  he  has 
also  written  a  short  "  History  of  the  University  of  Cambridge." 
(Epochs  of  Church  History.     London,  1888.) 
Gherardi  :     Statuti    della     universita     e     studio     Fiorentino. 

(Florence,  1881.) 
Villanueva  :    Statutes  of  the  University  of  Lerida  in  "  Viage 

Literario  a  las  Iglesias  de  Espana."     T.  xvi.     (Madrid,  1851.) 
V  Marcel  Fournier :  Les  Statuts  et    Privileges    des    Universites 

frangaises  depuis  leur  fondation  jusqu'en   1789.      (Paris, 

1890-92.) 
Dittrich  und  Spirk :  Monumenta  Historica  Universita tis  Pra- 

gensis.     (Prague,  1830.) 
Kink  :  Geschichte  der  Kaiserl.  Univ.  zu  Wien.     (Vienna,  1854.) 
Hautz :  Geschichte  der  Universitat  Heidelberg.      (Mannheim, 

1862.) 
Vernulseus  :  Academia  Lovaniensis.     (Louvain,  1667.) 
Molanus :  Historiae   Lovaniensium,    ed.    De    Ram.       (Brussels, 

1861.) 
Zarncke  :    Die   Statutenbiicher  der  Univ.    Leipzig.      (Leipzig 

1861.) 

Acta  Rectorum  Univ.  Lipsiensis.     (Leipzig,  1858.) 

Evidence    taken    and    received    by    the   Scottish   Universities 

Commissioners  of  1826.     (London,  1837.) 
Innes  :  Fasti  Aberdonenses.     Spalding  Club.     (Aberdeen,  1854.) 


INDEX 


Abelard,  6 

Aberdeen,   Univ.    of,    105,    106, 

107,  122-3 
iElius  Donatus,  138 
Aix,  Univ.  of,  39,  112,  114 
Alexander  de  Villa  Dei,  138 
Alfonso  the  Wise,  9 
Alyard,  Edmund,  153-4 
Angers,  Univ.  of,  7,  147 

Coll.  of  Breuil  at,  90 

Anselm,  St,  6 

Arezzo,  Studium  at,  7 

Aristotle,  138-143 

Arts,  The  Seven  Liberal,  137-9 

Avignon,  Univ.  of,  88,  112 

College  of  Annecy  at,  113 

College  of  Notre  Dame  de 

Pitie  at,  88,  90 

Confraternity     of     St 

Sebastian  at,  112 

Bagley  Wood,  97' 

Bateman,  Bishop,  70   - 

Boethius,  139 

Bologna,  Spanish  College  at,  19, 

34,93 
Studium  Generale  at,  6,  8, 

9 
Universities  of.   11-34,   44, 

46-7,  48,  140 

Caen,  Univ.  of,  148 
L 


Cahors,  College  of  St  Nicholas 

de  Pelegry  at,  89,  91 
Caius,  Dr,  61,  68 
Cambridge,  Univ.   of,  3,  7,   10, 
120,  136-7,  146-7 

College  discipline  at,  49-78 

Colleges  of — 

Caius,  61,  68,  70 

Christ's,  66,  69,  71 

Clare,  59 

Jesus,  67 

King's,  62,  64,  66 

Peterhouse,  58,  62,  63,  69, 
72 

Trinity,  68 

Trinity  Hall,  70 
Chaucer,  Prologue  to  Canterbury  y 

Tales,  1-3,  73,  74,  75 
Chichele,  Archbishop,  73 
Cicero,  138,  139 
College,  meaning  of  word,  5 
Cologne,  Univ.  of,  48 

Dole,  Univ.  of,  39 

Eberhard,  139 
Ely,  Bishop  of,  47 
Erfurt,  Univ.  of,  48 
Estoutville,  Cardinal,  94-5,  143-4 
Euclid,  139 


Farleigh,  51,  52 


161 


162    LIFE  m  THE  MEDIEVAL  UNIVERSITY 


Florence,  Univ.  of,  34-7 
France,  Universities  of,  12 
Frederick  Barbarossa,  24-5 
Frederick  II.,  8 

Germany,  Universities  of,  47-8, 

142 
Gilbert  de  la  Porree,  139 
Glasgow,  Univ.  of,  105,  106,  140 
Gloys,  James,  153 
Gregory  IX.,  9 

Hearne,  Thomas,  122 
Heidleberg,  Univ.  of,  48,  107-8, 

117,  141 
Henry  II.,  6 
Henry  VI.,  58,  61,  63,  66 
Henry  VIII.,  58 
Holler,  Thomas,  153 

Robert,  154 

Holywood,  John,  139 

Ingolstadt,  Univ.  of,  105 
Innocent  III.,  42,  43 
IV.,  7,  9 

John  XXI.,  139 
XXII.,  10 

King,  7,  45 

Knox,  Vicesimus,  149 

Leipsic,  Univ.  of,  48 

Collegium  Mains  at,  89 

Collegium  Minus  at,  90 

University    discipline     at, 

102-5,  108 
"  Town    and    Gown  "    at, 

128-131 
Lerida,  Univ.  of,  37-8 


Lincoln,  See  of,  45,  46 
Louvain,    Univ.    of,    48,    145-6, 

149 
—  University    discipline     at, 

101-2,  116 
Lyons,  Studium  at,  7,  9 
Lyra,  Nicolaus  de,  139 

Maldon,  51,  52,  54 

Marsilius,  139 

Melville,  Andrew,  140 

Modena,  Studium  at,  7,  9 

Merton,  Walter  de,  50-6,  134 

Montpellier,  Univ.  of,  7 

College  of  Douze  Medecins 

at,  89 
College  of  St  Benedict  at, 

91-3 
College  of  Saint  Ruf  at,  89, 

90 

Naples,  Univ.  of,  8 

"  Nations,"  14, 15,  18,  19,  20,  43, 

44,  46,  78,  79,  131 
Nicholas  IV.,  9,  10 

Orleans,  Univ.  of,  7,  115,  128 

Ovid,  139 

Oxford,  Univ.  of,  6,  10.  39,  45, 

47,  49,  120,  133-142,  146,  147, 

149-155 
College   discipline    at,    49- 

78 
University    discipline     at, 

95-101 
"  Town  and  Gown  at,  124- 

128 
Oxford,  Colleges  of — 
Balliol,  71,  122 
Brasenose,  66,  67,  122 
Christ  Church,  68 


INDEX 


163 


Oxford,  Colleges  of — 

Corpus  Christi,  60,  67,  68, 

72,  105 
Jesus,  59 
Lincoln,  77 
Magdalen,  62,  66,  134 
Merton,  50-6,  60,  67,   120, 

121    122   134 
New  College,  57,  58,  59,  60, 

61,  62,  63,  64,  66,  67,  71, 

76,  77,  120,  133,  147 
Pembroke,  68 
Queen's,  59,  61,  63,  74,  77 
Worcester,  68 
Oxford,  Halls  of— 

Haburdaysh  Hall,  98 
Pauline  Hall,  97 
Peckwater  Inn,  97 

Padua,  Univ.  of,  7,  10,  34 
Palencia,  Studium  at,  7 
Paris,  Univ.  of,  6,  7,  9,  11,  40, 
41-5,  49,  128,   133,   134,   139, 
141,  142-6,  148,  157-8 

College  discipline  at,  78-88 

"  Jocund  Advent  "  at,  109- 

112 

Univ.  discipline  at,  94-5 

Paris,  Colleges  of — 
Cambray,  111 
Clugny,  88 
Cornouaille,  83,  84,  85,  86, 

111,  133 
DainviUe,  87,  111,  144-6 
Le  Mans,  79,  84 
Marmoutier,  86 
Plessis,  82 

St  Bernard,  83,  85,  86,  110 
Sorbonne,  81,  85,  86,  111, 

112 
Tours,  83 
Treasurer's,  79,  80,  87,  111 


Paston,  John,  154 

Margaret,  153 

Walter,  152-5 

Peckham,  Archbishop,  55-6 
Perpignan,  Univ.  of,  38 
Petrus  Hispanus,  139 
Philip  Augustus,  42 
Plessis,  Geoffrey  du,  82 
Porphyry,  139 

Prague,  Univ.  of,  48,  116,  147 
Priscian,  139 
Ptolemy,  139 


Reggio,  Studium  at,  7 
Reims,  Studium  at,  7 
Rostock,  Univ.  of,  48 
Rouen,  79,  80,  81 
RudoK  IV.,  124 


St  Andrews,  Univ.  of,  105,  106, 

122 
St  Scholastica's  Day,  125-6 
Salamanca,    Studium   at,    7,    9, 

39 
Salerno,  Univ.  of,  9 
Saone,  Guillaume  de,  79 
Scayfe,  Henry,  77 
Scotland,  Universities  of,  48, 105, 

140,  142 
Seggefyld,  John,  77 
Studium  Generale,  meaning  of, 

5-12 


Toulouse,  Univ.  of,  7,  9,  128 

College  de  Foix  at,  89 

College  de  Verdale  at,  91, 

1.44 


Universitas,  meaning  of,  4,  5,  10, 


164    LIFE  IN  THE  MEDIEVAL  UNIVERSITY 


Valladolid,  Studium  at,  7 

Vicenza,  Studium  at,  7 

Vienna,  Univ.  of,  48,  124.  140, 

141,  142,  147 
Virgil,  139 

Waynflete,  William  of,  66,  134 
Wingfield,  Sir  E.,  57 


Wood,    Antony   a,    120-2,    125- 

126 
Wolsey,  Cardinal,  68 
Wiirzburg,  Univ.  of,  48 
Wykeham,  WiUiam  of,  58,  60,  62. 

63,  64,  67,  76,  147 

Zarncke,  Friedricli,  102 


TURNBUIX  AND  SPEARS,   PRINTERS,    EDINHURGH 


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